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PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
THE INTERNATIONAL. UNIVERSITY SERIES IN PSYCHOLOGY
PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
by
Alfred Adler
Madison Bentley
Edwin G. Boring
G. S. Brett
Harvey Carr
John Dewey
Knight Dunlap
J. C. Flugel
Walter S. Hunter
Pierre Janet
Truman L. Kelley
K. KOFFKA
Wolfgang Kohler
k. n. kornilov
William McDougall
John Paul Nafe
I. P. Pavlov
Friedrich Sander
a. l. schniermann
C. Spearman
Leonard T. Troland
Margaret F. Washburn
Albert P. Weiss
Robert S. Woodworth
Edited by
Carl Murchison
WORCESTER, MASSACHUSETTS
CLARK UNIVERSITY PRESS
LONDON: HUMPHREY MILFORD: OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
1930
p Qi 1 4
Copyright, 1930, by
Clark University
ALL rights reserved
Second printing, August, 1931
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
THE
INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY
SERIES
IN
PSYCHOLOGY
Edited by
CARL MURCHISON, Ph.D.
Professor of Psychology and Director of the
Psychological Laboratories in Clark Uni'versity
THE INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY SERIES
IN PSYCHOLOGY
PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1925
By Madison Bentley, Knight Dunlap, Walter S. Hunter, Kurt Koffka,
Wolfgang Kohler, William McDougall, Morton Prince, John B. Watson,
and Robert S. Woodworth. Edited by Carl Murchison.
CRIMINAL INTELLIGENCE
By Carl Murchison, Ph.D., Professor of Psychology and Director of the
Psychological Laboratories in Clark University.
THE CASE FOR AND AGAINST PSYCHICAL BELIEF
By Sir Oliver Lodge, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Frederick Bligh Bond,
L. R. G. Crandon, Mary Austin, Margaret Deland, William McDougall,
Hans Driesch, Walter Franklin Prince, F. C. S. Schiller, John E. Coover,
Gardner Murphy, Joseph Jastrow, and Harry Houdini. Edited by Carl
Murchison.
FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS: THE WITTENBERG SYMPOSIUM
By A. Adler, F. Aveling, V. M. Bekhterev, M. Bentley, G. S. Brett, K.
Buhler, W. B. Cannon, H. A. Carr, Ed. Claparede, K. Dunlap, R. H.
Gault, D. W. Gruehn, L. B. Hoisington, D. T. Howard, E. Jaensch, P.
Janet, J. Jastrow, C. Jorgensen, D. Katz, F. Kiesow, F. Krueger, H. S.
Langfeld, W. McDougall, H. Pieron, W. B. Pillsbury, M. Prince, C. E.
Seashore, C. E. Spearman, W. Stern, G. M. Stratton, J. S. Terry, M. F.
Washburn, A. P. Weiss, and R. S. Woodworth. Edited by Martin L.
Reymert.
SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY: THE PSYCHOLOGY OF POLITICAL
DOMINATION
By Carl Murchison, Ph.D., Professor of Psychology and Director of the
Psychological Laboratories in Clark University.
THE COMMON SENSE OF DREAMS
By Henry J. Watt, D.Phil., Late Lecturer in Psychology in the University
of Glasgoiv, and Late Consulting Psychologist to the Glasgoiv Royal Asylum.
Author of "The Psychology of Sound."
THE FOUNDATIONS OF EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY
By H. Banister, Philip Bard, W. B. Cannon, W. J. Crozier, Alexander
Forbes, Shepherd Ivory Franz, Frank N. Freeman, Arnold Gesell, H. Hart-
ridge, Selig Hecht, James Quinter Holsopple, Walter S. Hunter, Truman
L. Kelley, Carney Landis, K. S. Lashley, Mark A. May, T. H. Morgan,
John Paul Nafe, George H. Parker, Rudolf Pintner, Eugene Shen, L. T.
Troland, and Clark Wissler. Edited by Carl Murchison.
THE INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY SERIES
IN PSYCHOLOGY (.continued)
THE PSYCHOLOGICAL REGISTER
Edited by Carl Murchison, Clark Uni<versity, in cooperation with F. C.
Bartlett, University of Cambridge, Stefan Blachowski, University of Poznan,
Karl Biihler, University of Vienna, Sante De Sanctis, University of Rome,
Thorleif G. Hegge, University of Oslo, Matataro Matsumoto, Tokyo Im-
perial University, Henri Pieron, University of Paris, and A. L. Schniermann,
Bekhterev Reflexological Institute.
PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
By Alfred Adler, Madison Bentley, Edwin G. Boring, G. S. Brett, Harvey
Carr, John Dewey, Knight Dunlap, J. C. Flugel, Walter S. Hunter, Pierre
Janet, Truman L. Kelley, K. Koffka, Wolfgang Kohler, K. N. Kornilov,
William McDougall, John Paul Nafe, I. P. Pavlov, Friedrich Sander, Alex-
ander L. Schniermann, C. Spearman, Leonard T. Troland, Margaret Floy
Washburn, Albert P. Weiss, and Robert S. Woodworth. Edited by Carl
Murchison.
PREFACE
In planning Psychologies of 1930 we have tried to profit from all the
serious criticisms that came to Psychologies of 1925. Associationism, Act
Psychology, and Functionalism have been included in their historical set-
ting, but the reader should not presume that these three schools are discussed
by partisans in the same way as are the other schools. Professors Brett and
Carr have acted largely as historians only in bringing these three schools
to the convenient attention of students of this book, though Professor Carr
himself is certainly in the direct line of descent from Functionalism.
The former category of "Purposive Psychology" is here presented under
the rubric "Hormic Psychology" and is expounded by the leading exponent
of both rubrics.
The large group of students who have come from Titchener's laboratory
are represented by four different points of view. It may be made self-
evident whether or not it is appropriate to apply the term "Structuralism"
to the doctrines of this group.
The present-day theories of the Leipzig laboratory are added to the
Berlin group under the more general title of "Configurational Psychol-
ogies," it being definitely understood that this classification is applied by
the Editor only.
The three leading Russian schools of psychology are here presented in
comparable, theoretical form for the first time in the English language.
The Factor School of Psychology and three Analytical Psychologies
appear also as distinct additions to the program of Psychologies of 1925.
A separate section on some non-sectarian fundamental problems has also
been added.
As I can recall the various types of helpful criticisms and comments
concerning Psychologies of 1925 that have come my way during the past
five years, I do not believe I have failed to observe a single one. If I have
failed to heed any of them, it has been entirely my fault and I hope the
suggestions will be repeated.
Now that psychology is rapidly coming of age, it is no longer a symbol
of maturity for a psychologist to neglect the theoretical foundations of his
science. Those who have suggested that it is futile to examine theoretically
the hypotheses on which all experimental work is based have not been
obeyed during the preparation of this volume, but are being quietly left
to the tender mercies of time.
I acknowledge with gratitude the assistance of Dr. Luberta M. Harden,
who has supervised the preparation of the manuscripts for the printer and
has made the indices.
Carl Murchison
Clark University
Worcester, Massachusetts
March 25, 1930
[ix]
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Preface ix
Photographs of Contributors ...... xiii
Part I. Hormic Psychology
1. The Hormic Psychology 3
William McDougall, Duke University
Part II. "Act" or "Intentional" Psychology
AND AsSOCIATIONISM
2. Associationism and "Act" Psychology: A Historical
Retrospect ......... 39
G. S. Brett, University of Toronto
Part III. Functional Psychology
3. Functionalism ......... 59
Harvey Carr, University of Chicago
Part IV. Psychological Theories of Those Whose
Training Background Was the Structuralism
OF E. B. Titchener
4. A System of Motor Psychology 81
Margaret Floy Washburn, Vassar College
5. A Psychology for Psychologists ...... 95
Madison Bentley, Cornell University
6. Psychology for Eclectics . 115
Edwin G. Boring, Harvard University
7. Structural Psychology 128
John Paul Nafe, Clark University
Part V. Configurational Psychologies
8. Some Tasks of Gestalt Psychology 143
Wolfgang Kohler, University of Berlin
9. Some Problems of Space Perception 161
K. Koffka, Smith College
10. Structure, Totality of Experience, and Gestalt . . . 188
Friedrich Sander, University of Giessen
Part VI. Russian Psychologies
11. A Brief Outline of the Higher Nervous Activity . . . 207
I. P. Pavlov, State Institute of Experimental Medicine, Leningrad
[xi]
12. Bekhterev's Reflexological School . . . . .
Alexander L. Schniermann, Bekhterev's Reflexological State
Institute for Brain Researches, Leningrad
13. Psychology in the Light of Dialectic Materialism .
K. N. KoRNiLov, Moscow State University
Part VII. Behaviorism
14. Anthroponomy and Psychology . . . .
Walter S. Hunter, Clark University
15. The Biosocial Standpoint in Psychology . . . .
Albert P. Weiss, Ohio State University
Part VIII. Reaction Psychology
16. Response Psychology ........
Knight Dunlap, The Johns Hopkins University
Part IX. Dynamic Psychology
17. Dynamic Psychology ........
Robert S. Woodworth, Columbia University
Part X. "Factor" School of Psychology
18. "G" and After — a School to End Schools . . . .
C. Spearman, University of London
Part XI. Analytical Psychologies
19. L' Analyse Psychologique .......
Pierre Janet, College of France
20. Psychoanalysis: Its Status and Promise . . . .
J. C. Flugel, University of London
21. Individual Psychology .......
Alfred Adler, Vienna
Part XII. Some of the Problems Fundamental
TO All Psychology
22. Conduct and Experience .
John Dewey, Columbia University
23. The Inheritance of Mental Traits
Truman L. Kelley, Stanford University
24. Normality
C. Spearman, University of London
25. Motivation .....
Leonard T. Troland, Harvard University
Name Index .....
Subject Index
[xii]
221
243
281
301
PHOTOGRAPHS OF CONTRIBUTORS
Alfred Adler .
Madison Bentley
Edwin G. Boring
G. S. Brett
Harvey Carr
John Dewey
Knight Dunlap
J. C. Flugel .
Walter S. Hunter
Pierre Janet
Truman L. Kelley
K. Koffka
Wolfgang Kohler
K. N. Kornilov
William McDougall
John Paul Nafe
I. P. Pavlov .
Friedrich Sander
Alexander L. Schniermann
C. Spearman
Leonard T. Troland
Margaret Floy Washburn
Albert P. Weiss
Robert S. Woodworth
XIV
xiv
xiv
xiv
XV
XV
XV
XV
xvi
xvi
xvi
xvi
xvii
xvii
xvii
xvii
xviii
xviii
xviii
xviii
xix
xix
xix
xix
[xiii]
Alfred Adler
Madison Bentley
Edwin G. Boring
G. S. Brett
[xiv]
Harvey Carr
Photograph by Underwood and Underwood Studios
John Dewey
Knight Dunlap
J. C. Flugel
[xv]
Photograph by Bachrach
Walter S. Hunter
Pierre Janet
Truman L. Kelley
K. KOFFKA
[xvi]
Wolfgang Kohler
K. N. KORNILOV
William McDougall John Paul Nafe
[xvii]
I. p. Pavlov
Friedrich Sander
Alexander L. Schniermann
C. Spearman
[xviii]
Leonard T. Troland
Margaret Floy Washburn
Albert P. Weiss
Photograph by Bachrach
Robert S. Woodworth
[xix]
PART I
THE HORMIC PSYCHOLOGY
CHAPTER 1
THE HORMIC PSYCHOLOGY
William McDougall
Duke University
In the volume Psychologies of 1925 I took the field as an exponent of
purposive psychology. Anticipating a little the course of history, I shall
here assume that the purposive nature of human action is no longer in
dispute, and in this article shall endeavor to define and to justify that
special form of purposive psychology vi^hich is novv^ pretty widely known
as hormic psychology. But first a few words in justification of this assump-
tion.
Fifteen years ago American psychologists displayed almost without excep-
tion a complete blindness to the most peculiar, characteristic, and important
feature of human and animal activity, namely, its goal-seeking. All bodily
actions and all phases of experience were mechanical reactions to stimuli,
and all learning was the modification of such reactions by the addition
of one reaction to another according to the mechanical principles of associa-
tion. The laws of learning were the laws of frequency, of recency, and
of effect; and, though the law of effect as formulated by Thorndike may
have suggested to some few minds that the mechanical principles involved
were not so clear as might be wished, the laws of frequency and recency
could give rise to no such misgivings. The law of effect, with its un-
comfortable suggestion of an effect that somehow causes its cause, was
pretty generally regarded as something to be got rid of by the substitution
of some less ambiguous and more clearly mechanical formula.
Now, happily, all this is changed; the animal psychologists have begun
to realize that any description of animal behavior which ignores its goal-
seeking nature is futile, any "explanation" which leaves it out of account,
factitious, and any experimentation which ignores motivation, grossly
misleading; they are busy with the study of "drives," "sets," and "incen-
tives." It is true that their recognition of goal-seeking is generally partial
and grudging; they do not explicitly recognize that a "set" is a set toward
an end, that a "drive" is an active striving toward a goal, that an "incen-
tive" is something that provokes such active striving. The terms "striving"
and "conation" are still foreign to their vocabularies.
Much the same state of affairs prevails in current American writings
on human psychology. Its problems are no longer discussed, experiments
are no longer made with total and bland disregard for the purposive nature
of human activity. The terms "set," "drive," and "incentive," having
been found indispensable in animal psychology, are allowed to appear in
discussions of human problems, in spite of their anthropomorphic implica-
[3]
4 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
tions; "prepotent reflexes," "motives," "drives," "preponderant propen-
sities," "impulses toward ends," "fundamental urges," and even "purposes"
novr figure in the texts. In the final chapter on personality of a thoroughly
mechanical text ( 1 ) , in which the word "purpose" has been conspicuous
by its absence, a role of first importance is assigned to "dominant pur-
poses." Motivation, after being almost ignored, has become a problem
of central interest. Yet, as was said above, we are in a transition period;
and all this recognition of the purposive nature of human activity is par-
tial and grudging. The author (Dr. H. A. Carr), who tells us on one
page that "Man attempts to transform his environment to suit his own
purposes," nowhere tells us what he means by the word "purposes" and
is careful to tell us on a later page that "We must avoid the naive assump-
tion that the ulterior consequences of an act either motivate that act or
serve as its objective." Almost without exception the authors who make
any recognition of the goal-seeking or purposive nature of human and
animal activities fall into one of the three following classes: {a) they imply
that, if only we knew a little more about the nervous system, we should
be able to explain such activities mechanically; or (^) they explicitly make
this assertion; (c) more rarely, they proceed to attempt some such ex-
planation.
Partial, half-hearted, reluctant as is still the recognition of purposive
activity, it may, I think, fairly be said that only the crude behaviorists
now ignore it completely; that, with that exception, American psychology
has become purposive, in the sense that it no longer ignores or denies the
goal-seeking nature of human and animal action, but accepts it as a prob-
lem to be faced.
It would, then, be otiose in this year of grace to defend or advocate pur-
posive psychology in the vague sense of all psychology that recognizes
purposiveness, takes account of foresight and of urges, impulses, cravings,
desires, as motives of action.
My task is the more difficult one of justifying the far more radically
purposive psychology denoted by the adjective "hormic," a psychology
which claims to be autonomous ; which refuses to be bound to and limited
by the principles current in the physical sciences; which asserts that active
striving towards a goal is a fundamental category of psychology, and is a
process of a type that cannot be mechanistically explained or resolved into
mechanistic sequences; which leaves it to the future development of the
sciences to decide whether the physical sciences shall continue to be mechan-
istic or shall find it necessary to adopt hormic interpretations of physical
events, and whether we are to have ultimately one science of nature, or
two, the mechanistic and the teleological. For hormic psychology is not
afraid to use teleological description and explantion. Rather, it insists that
those of our activities which we can at all adequately describe are unmis-
takably and undeniably teleological, are activities which we undertake
in the pursuit of some goal, for the sake of some result which we foresee
and desire to achieve. And it holds that such activities are the true type
of all mental activities and of all truly vital activities, and that, when we
WILLIAM McDOUGALL 5
seek to interpret more obscure instances of human activity and when we
observe on the part of animals actions that clearly are goal-seeking, we are
well justified in regarding them as of the same order as our own explicitly
teleological or purposive actions.
While the academic psychologies of the recent past have sought to explain
the higher types of activity from below upward, taking simple physical
and chemical events as their starting-point, hormic psychology begins by
accepting the higher activities, those which are clearly and explicitly pur-
posive and into the nature of which we have the most insight, and seeks to
extend such insight downwards to the simpler but more obscure types of
action.
Teleology, Intrinsic and Extrinsic
I introduce the term 'teleological' early in the exposition because I
do not wish to seem to smuggle it in at a later stage after betraying the
innocent reader into acceptance of a position which commits him unwit-
tingly to teleology. Modern science has shown an aversion to all teleology ;
one might almost say that it has a 'complex' on that subject. The origin
and development of this unreasoning and unreasonable aversion is intelli-
gible enough. It developed in the course of the conflict of science with
religion. The favorite explanation of all obscure natural processes offered
by the theologians was that they expressed and were governed by the pur-
pose of the Creator, who had designed and constructed the various objects
of the natural world in order that, as parts of one grand system, they might
exhibit and fulfil His purposes. Whether the theologians conceived natu-
ral objects as having been once and for all designed and created in such a
way that natural events would run their courses, fulfilling God's purpose
without further intervention on His part, or believed that the finger of
God still actively directs the course of natural events, these teleological
explanations were, in either case, utterly repugnant to the spirit of modern
science; for science had found it possible to explain many events as the
effects of natural causes, and it had become the accepted program of science
to extend such explanations as widely as possible.
It has become usual to speak of the explanations offered by science as
naturalistic, and to oppose them to the supernatural explanations of the
theologians. Now, to explain an event is to assign the causes of it, the
play of antecedent events of which the event in question is the consequence.
Early scientists inclined to interpret many events after the model of our
own experience of causation. We foresee a particular event as a possibility;
we desire to see this possibility realized; we take action in accordance with
our desire, and we seem to guide the course of events in such a way that
the foreseen and desired event results. To explain an event as caused
in this way was to invoke teleological causation, not the extrinsic supernatu-
ral teleology of the theologians, but a natural teleological causation, a causal
activity thoroughly familiar to each man through his own repeated experi-
ences of successful action for the attainment of desired goals. Primitive
man applied explanation of this type to many natural events, regarding an-
6 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
thropomorphically many natural objects which modern science has taught
us to regard as utterly devoid of any such affinity with ourselves. The
early students of physical nature did not entirely discard explanations of
this type. They regarded natural events more analytically than primitive
men had done; but they still inclined to regard the elements into which
they analyzed the given natural objects as acting teleologically, as moved
by desire, and as striving to achieve the effects they naturally desired.
The Newtonian mechanics put an end to explanation of this type in the
physical sciences. For it appeared that very many physical events, more
especially various astronomical events, could be adequately explained in
terms of mass, motion, momentum, attraction, and repulsion, all exactly
measurable; and many such events became strictly predictable from such
principles of causation. From such causal explanations all reference to
foresight of something, to desire for something, to striving for that some-
thing, in fact all reference to the future course of events, was wholly ex-
cluded. The explanation of any event was given in terms only of other
events antecedent to it ; all reference to possible or probable consequences
proved to be unnecessary; explanation was purged of all taint of teleology.
Explanation of this type was so successful in the physical sciences that,
although the hope of strictly mechanical explanation of all events of the
inanimate world is now seen to have been illusory, such ateleological ex-
planation has become established as the type and model to which natural-
istic explanation should conform. Such ateleological explanation is what
is meant by mechanistic explanation in the broad sense.^ The mechanistic
or ateleological explanations of science were dubbed naturalistic and were
accepted in place of the supernatural teleological explanations of theology.
So far all was well; the procedure was entirely justified. But at this point
an unfortunate confusion of thought became very general. The confusion
consisted in falling victim to the compelling force of words and in re-
garding as supernatural, not only the external teleological causation of
the theologians, but also the internal teleological causation or causal activ-
ity of men.
This, I say, was an unfortunate and unwarranted confusion; and it
still pervades the thinking of most men of science when they approach the
problems of psychology and biology. Any proposal to take seriously the
teleological causation which seems to be revealed in human activities, to
regard such causation as real and effective, they repudiate as trafficking
in supernatural causes; for, in learning to repudiate the external super-
natural teleology of theology, they have come to regard as also supernatural
the internal teleological causation of the human organism. Yet there is no
good ground for so regarding it. To desire, to strive, and to attain our
goal is as natural as falling off a log, and with such teleological causa-
^As I have shown in my Modern Materialism and Emergent Evolution (21),
there is no other way of defining the meaning of the word "mechanistic," no
other way than this negative way which defines it by excluding all trace of
teleology, all reference to the future ; mechanistic means ateleological.
WILLIAM McDOUGALL 7
tion we are entirely familiar ; we have more intimate understanding of it
than of mechanistic causation.
During the nineteenth century, under the prevalence of the faith that
strictly mechanical or Newtonian causation was adequate to the explana-
tion of all events of the inanimate world, it was natural enough to regard
such causation as the one and only type of naturalistic causation, and, there-
fore, to class intrinsic teleological causation with the extrinsic teleological
causation of the theologians, as supernatural. But now, when it has be-
come clear that that faith or hope was illusory and that we have no in-
sight into the nature of mechanistic causation, this ground for repudiating
internal teleological causation has been taken away — and none remains.
It is probable that the remaining prejudice against it is more than a
hang-over from the days of belief in strictly mechanical or Newtonian
causation. To accept the teleological causation of human agents is to
believe in the causal efficacy of psychical events; and it seems to be widely
felt that to do this is necessarily to commit one's self to psychophysical dual-
ism or animism, and thus to offend against the common preference for a
monistic world-view and against the theory of continuity of evolution of
the organic from the inorganic. But this is an error which a little clear
thinking should quickly dispel. Two monistic theories, both implying
continuity of evolution, are now enjoying considerable vogue among both
philosophers and men of science, namely, psychic monism and the emergent
theory.
Psychic monism, as expounded by Paulsen, Morton Prince, C. A. Strong,
Durant Drake, and L. T. Troland, has no ground for doubting the causal
efficacy of psychic events; for its teaching is that all events are psychic.
Morton Prince, with his ever youthful mind, saw this clearly enough and
hence did not hesitate to figure as an exponent of purposive psychology in
the volume Psychologies of 1925 (27). Dr. Troland, curiously enough,
seems to cast aside in the most gratuitous fashion the opportunity afforded
by his espousal of psychic monism to lift psychology above the sterile plane
of mechanistic explanation.
The emergent theory^ is equally compatible with, and in fact asserts,
the causal efficacy of psychic events and the continuity of organic with in-
organic evolution ; and it is a monistic theory. Hence it fulfils all the
requirements of the psychologist who cannot blind himself to the reality
of goal-seeking behavior and purposive activity, and yet holds fast to monism
and continuity of evolution. And it is a theory now in excellent standing,
sponsored by such outstanding thinkers as S. Alexander, L. T. Hobhouse,
Lloyd Morgan, H. S. Jennings, R. B. Perry, W. M. Wheeler.
With these alternatives open to the choice of the psychologist, he has
no valid ground for denying the causal efficacy of psychic activity in the
natural world, no ground for continuing to regard internal teleological
^Cf. Lloyd Morgan's two volumes of Gifford Lectures, Emergent Evolution (24)
and Life, Mind and Spirit (25), also my Modern Materialism and Emergent
Evolution (21) for exposition of the emergent theory.
8 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
causation as supernatural, and therefore no ground for blinding himself
to the purposive nature of human activity. One suspects that the preva-
lent reluctance to recognize fully and freely the purposive nature of
human activity and the goal-seeking nature of animal activities is mainly
due to the fact that most of us vi^ere brought up to believe in epiphenomenal-
ism of psychophysical parallelism, those equally illogical, profoundly un-
satisfactory, and now discredited makeshifts of a generation dominated by
mechanical materialism and imbued with an ill-founded prejudice in favor
of regarding all causation as mechanistic. Or perhaps the common case
is simpler: throughout a considerable period the physical sciences have
worked very successfully in terms of purely mechanistic or ateleological
causation ; therefore psychology and all the biological sciences must do
likewise. To this contention the answer is obvious: this policy is running
psychology and biology in general into a blind alley. Weismannism, the
only purely mechanistic theory of biological evolution, has broken down;
and vague theories of creative evolution or orthogenesis are the order of
the day. There is renewed interest in the possibility of Lamarckian trans-
mission. Physiologists are breaking away from the mechanistic tradition.
Dr. K. S. Lashley, in his presidential address to the American Psychologi-
cal Association, speaking in the light of his own very extensive researches,
has thrown all the prevailing views on cerebral action back into the melting-
pot without offering a substitute. Three at least of the leaders of biology
in America, Lillie, Herrick, and Jennings, are calling aloud for recogni-
tion of the causal efKcacy in nature of psychical activities.^ In Great
Britain, Drs. J. S. Haldane and E. S. Russell are building up the psycho-
biological school, which utterly denies the adequacy of mechanistic prin-
ciples of explanation in biolog}\ (The former bluntly denounces as "clap-
trap" the claim, so often repeated "parrot-like," that physiology is re-
vealing the mechanism of life.) The German thinkers interested in the
various human sciences, impatient of the failure of the "strictly scientific"
*Dr. R. S. Lillie (11) writes: "What we agree to call the spiritual appears at
times to act directly as a transformer of the physical, as in artistic or other crea-
tion. Such experiences cannot be accounted for on physical grounds, for one!
reason because it is in the very nature of physical abstraction to rule out asj
irrelevant all factors of a volitional or other 'psychic' kind. To trace the course]
of the physiological processes accompanying an act of intellectual creation would j
undoubtedly give us curious information, of a kind, but would throw little if any'
light on the essential nature of the reality underlying."
Dr. C. J. Herrick (5) writes: "No abyss of ignorance of what consciousness
really is, no futilities of introspective analysis, no dialectic, destroy the simple
datum that I have conscious experience and that this experience is a controlling
factor in my behavior. . . . The prevision of possible future consequences of
action is a real causative factor in determining which course of action will
actually be chosen." Cf. also (6).
H. S. Jennings is no less emphatic. He writes (9) of "that monstrous absurdity
that has so long been a reproach to biological science; the doctrine that ideas,
ideals, purposes have no effect on behavior. The mental determines what hap-
pens as does any other determiner. . . . The desires and aspirations of humanity
are determiners in the operation of the universe on the same footing with physi-
cal determiners."
WILLIAM McDOUGALL 9
psychology taught in the universities to furnish any psychological basis for
those sciences, are turning away to construct a psychology of the kind they
need, a geisteswissenschaftliche Psychologie, which frankly throws aside
the mechanistic principles and recognizes the teleological nature of human
activity. The Gestalt school of psychology protests against mechanistic
interpretations.
Clearly the dominance of biology by the mechanistic ideal of the physi-
cal sciences is passing; while physical science itself is giving up strict deter-
minism and exact predictability. Where, then, is to be found any justifica-
tion for the old-fashioned prejudice against psychical causation, which, if
admitted at all, can be only teleological causation? Why should not we
psychologists, whose business is with the psychical, boldly claim that here is
the indeterminate and creative element in nature, rather than leave it to
physicists and physiologists to show the way and force us to recognize the
fact? To admit the efHcacy of psychical activity in nature is not, as so many
seem to imagine, to deny causation.* Science must hold fast to causation, if
*E.g., Professor R. S. Woodworth (33) writes: "Some authors, as especially
McDougall, appear to teach that any thorough-going causal interpretation of
human behavior and experience implies shutting one's eyes to the facts of purpose
and striving. There is certainly some confusion here. There can be no contra-
diction between the purposiveness of a sequence of action and its being a causal
sequence. A purpose is certainly a cause: if it had no effect, it would be without
significance." There is confusion here ; but I suggest it is Woodworth's thinking,
rather than mine, that is confused. Both in this essay and in his Psychology (34),
Woodworth professes to give full recognition to "purpose" and even says, as in
the passage cited, that a purpose is a cause. To me it seems very misleading to
speak either of "a purpose" or of "a cause." And the sentence, "a purpose is a
cause," is ambiguous and confused; it leaves the reader in doubt of the author's
meaning. We go in search of passages which will tell what the author means
by "a purpose." We find in the same essay that "Your purpose would be futile
if it had no effects, it would be incredible if it had no causes. It is a link in a
causal chain, but it is as fine a purpose for all that." Now, in the same essay,
Woodworth characteristically refuses to face the question of what he calls "the
philosophy of purpose and striving and their place in the world-process as a
whole," as also the question of the validity of the mechanistic conception of life.
He will not commit himself for or aeainst the mechanistic conception. He seeks
to give the impression that his psychology takes full account of the purposive
striving of men and animals. He would like to run with the hare and hunt with
the hounds; he desires both to eat his cake and to have it. He is too clear-sighted
to ignore the facts of goal-seeking; but his thinking is too timid to allow him to
see and to say that here is a parting of the ways, a crucial question to which one
of two answers is right and the other wrong, the question, namely — Is human
mental activity mechanistic or is it teleological ? However these two terms be
defined (and as I have said, the only satisfactory way of defining "mechanistic
process" is the negative one of defining it as the ateleological), they are by com-
mon consent mutually exclusive: if a process is mechanistic, it is not teleological;
and if it is teleological, it is not mechanistic. But in spite of Woodworth's care-
ful non-committal ambiguity, and in spite of his air of giving full recognition
to the causal efficacy of purposive striving, it seems that he remains mechanis-
tic; that he means by cause and causation always and only the mechanistic type,
and means to repudiate all teleological causation. This comes to light in one
passage: he writes of a "need" as "the controlling factor in the activity"; and
immediately adds: "Whether the concept of 'need' is a useful dynamic concept is
perhaps open to doubt; it smacks considerably of the sort of teleology that we
10 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
not to strict determination. Psychical events, though teleological, have
their conditions and their causal antecedents; but in them the foreseeing
activity is a real factor which makes, not the future event foreseen, but
the foreseeing of it as possible and as desirable or repugnant a cooperating
factor in the total configuration of the present moment. To put it in
other words, valuation is a psychical function which is rooted in the past
history of the individual and of the race ; and it is an activity that makes a
difference; applied to the foreseen possibility, it inclines our activity this
way or that, to seek or accept, avoid or reject.
Surely, a future age, looking back upon the vagaries of our own, will
record with astonishment the fact that in this early stage of the develop-
ment of the biological sciences, men of science, while perceiving clearly that
the power of foreseeing, of anticipating the future course of events, has
developed steadily in the race until in man it has become his most striking
characteristic, yet persistently deny that this wonderful capacity is of any
service in our struggle for existence.^
do well to leave aside." Even here he suggests vaguely that there Is teleology
of some sort that he would not leave aside; but that is merely one more expres-
sion of his inveterate tendency to sit on the fence. When we discover finally
his definition of "a purpose," it confirms our suspicion that, in spite of all his
well-sounding camouflage, Woodworth is on the side of the mechanists: "Con-
scious purpose is an adjustment still in the making or just being tuned up, and
specially an adjustment that is broad and still precise. . . . Purpose is the activity
itself, initiated but not completed. It is an activity in progress." Again: "A
purpose is a set for a certain activity with foresight of the result of that activity."
But does the foresight play any part, or is It merely an accompaniment? Wood-
worth refuses to commit himself. "How can a conscious purpose have any effect
on the brain and muscles anyway? Thus one of the old puzzles of philosophy is
injected into our peaceful psychological study, muddling our heads and threatening
to wreck our intellectual honesty. We cannot deal with this metaphysical ques-
tion here" (34). Woodworth would like to explain human action teleologically ;
but he sees that to do so would be to admit the causal efficacy of psychical activity,
and, as he cannot bring himself to take that step, his intellectual "honesty" com-
pels him to put the responsibility on the metaphysicians until such time as the
push from his scientific colleagues of the other sciences shall leave him and his
fellow-psychologists no option in the matter.
^Many eminent physicists have insisted on the control and direction of energy
transformations by human agency as something that will not fit with the physicists'
scheme of things. Why, then, should psychologists fear to follow them? I cite
a very recent instance. Commenting on Eddington's discussion of the law of
entropy as universally valid in the physical realm, Sir O. Lodge (12) writes:
"This has long been known, but Eddington illustrates it very luminously by what
he calls the operation of 'shuffiing.' Given an orderly pack of cards, it may be
hopelessly disorganized by shuffling, and no amount of shuflBIng will bring it
back into order. [It is pointless to say. as does a recent reviewer of Eddington's
book, that, if you continue to shuffle for an Infinite time, the order will be re-
stored ; for the order may be restored by human activity many times in a brief
period] Many of the processes in nature thus result in greater disorganization;
and, according to Eddington, the irreversible disorganization measures the en-
tropy. Entropy is disorganization. It is easy to break an orderly arrangement
down, but not so easy to build it up. Yet it can be built up. Not by random
and unintelligent processes truly: a mob of monkeys playing on a million type-
writers will not compose a volume of poems. The only way to restore order is
WILLIAM McDOUGALL 11
Two Forms of Teleological or Purposive Psychology, the
Hedonistic and the Hormic
The psychologist who can summon enough courage to follow the lead of
physicists and biologists and to accept the causal efficacy of psychical activ-
ity, of foresight and desire, is confronted with a choice between two theories
of the ground of all desire, of all striving or conation, the hedonistic and
the hormic.
Psychological hedonism enjoyed a great vogue in the nineteeth century
and is not yet dead ; for it embodies some truth. Not every theory of
action that assigns a role to pleasure and pain is teleological. Two promi-
nent American psychologists, Drs. E. L. Thorndike and L. T. Troland,
have elaborated a theory which remains strictly mechanistic, though it
assigns a role to pleasure and pain. In this theory, pleasure accompany-
ing any form of activity "stamps in" that activity, affects the brain struc-
tures in such a way that similar activity is the more likely to recur under
similar conditions; and pain has the opposite effect. It is clear that there
is nothing teleological in this form of hedonic theory; it is a hedonism of
the past. It is a striking evidence of the strength of the prejudice against
teleological causation, that Dr. Troland, who believes that all things and
events are in reality psychical, should thus choose to elaborate his psychical
theory in terms of purely mechanistic causation.^
A second form of hedonism may be called "hedonism of the present." It
asserts that all action is to be regarded as prompted by the pleasure or the
pain of the moment of experience. Its position in relation to mechanism
and teleology is ambiguous. It can be held and stated in a mechanistic
form : the feeling accompanying present process is a factor of causal efficacy
in the total configuration, one that prolongs and modifies the total process.
It can be stated in a teleological form : the pleasure of the moment prompts
efforts to prolong the pleasurable activity and secure more pleasure; the
pain of the present moment prompts an effort to get rid of the pain and
secure ease. In this second form the role assigned to foresight renders the
formulation teleological.
to apply the activity of mind, . . . Shuffling, as Eddington luminously says, is
'an absent-minded operation'. . . . Mind is essential to organization, and organiza-
tion or reorganization is a natural result of mental activity consciously directed
to a present end."
*Cf. (31). Dr. C. J. Herrick (7) follows the same strange procedure. He
stoutly asserts the causal efficacy of psychical events, especially of ideals, but just
as decidedly proclaims the all-sufficiency of mechanistic principles in biology and
psychology. Like Woodworth (cf. footnote 4), he seems to believe that to admit
the teleological causation involved in the working of an ideal would be to give
up causation. His unexamined postulate is that the natural is the mechanistic,
and any non-mechanistic or teleological causation is ipso facto non-natural or
supernatural. He accepts emergent evolution and asserts that the human brain
is a creative agent; yet asserts also that it works purely mechanistically. He
does not see that these two assertions are in flat contradiction, that a strictly
mechanistic event cannot be creative of novelties ; that to assert it to be so is to
make a self-contradictory statement, since "mechanistic" excludes "creation of
novelty" in its definition.
12 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
This second variety of hedonism embodies truth. But it is false if put
forward as a general theory of all action. We do seek to prolong pleasant
activities and to get rid of pain. But it is not true that all, or indeed
any large proportion, of our activities can be explained in this way. Our
seeking of a goal, our pursuit of an end, is an activity that commonly in-
curs pleasure or pain; but these are incidental consequences. Our striving
after food, or a mate, or power, knowledge, revenge, or relief of others'
suffering is commonly but little influenced by the hedonic effects incident
to our striving. The conation is prior to, and not dependent upon, its
hedonic accompaniments, though these may and do modify its course.
The traditional psychological hedonism is thoroughly teleological. It
asserts that all human action is performed for the sake of attaining a fore-
seen pleasure or of avoiding foreseen pain. It is, however, inacceptable,
and for two reasons chiefly. First, it is in gross contradiction with clear
instances of human action initiated and sustained, not only without antici-
pation of resulting pleasure or of resulting avoidance of pain, but with
clear anticipation of a resulting excess of pain. Secondly, it cannot be
applied to the interpretation of animal action (unless, possibly, to some
actions of the highest animals) ; and thus would make between human and
animal action a radical difference of principle, inconsistent with the well-
founded theory of continuity of human with animal evolution. ''^
The hopeless inadequacy of psychological hedonism appears very clearly
when it is attempted to apply it to the explanation of our valuations. J.
S. Mill attempted to extricate the doctrine from its predicament in face of
the problem of values by recognizing lower and higher pleasures; but it
is generally conceded that in so doing he saved his moral theory at the cost
of making an indefensible psychological distinction.
It should be sufficient answer to point to that sphere of human ex-
perience which the hedonists most commonly adduce in illustration of their
theory, namely, the sexual. When we reflect on the profound influence
of the sex urge in human life, its vast range, its immeasurable strength
that so often drives men to the most reckless adventures and the most tragic
disasters or sustains them through immense and prolonged labors, its fren-
zies of passionate desire, its lofty exaltations and its deep depressions, we
must surely conclude that he who would see the ground of all these phe-
nomena in the pleasurable tone of certain cutaneous sensations must lack
all personal experience of any but the most trivial manifestations of sex.
The Hormic Theory of Action
We are thus driven to the hormic theory as the only alternative teleologi-
'The fallacy that hedonism can explain both human and animal actions in-
volves, I suggest, a confusion of teleological hedonism, the theory that we act
for the sake of attaining pleasure or of avoiding pain, with mechanistic hedonism,
the theory that pleasures and pains leave after-effects which play their parts in
the determination of subsequent actions, and with hedonism-of-the-present, the
theory that pleasure sustains pi-esent action and pain checks or turns it aside.
The first is used to explain human action; the second or third, or both, to explain
animal action.
WILLIAM McDOUGALL 13
cal theory of action. The essence of it may be stated very simply. To
the question — Why does a certain animal or man seek this or that goal? —
it replies: Because it is his nature to do so. This answer, simple as it may
seem, has deep significance.
Observation of animals of any one species shows that all members of
the species seek and strive toward a limited number of goals of certain
types, certain kinds of food and of shelter, their mates, the company of
their fellows, certain geographical areas at certain seasons, escape to cover
in presence of certain definable circumstances, dominance over their fellows,
the welfare of their young, and so on. For any one species the kinds of
goals sought are characteristic and specific; and all members of the species
seek these goals independently of example and of prior experience of at-
tainment of them, though the course of action pursued in the course of
striving towards the goal may vary much and may be profoundly modified
by experience. We are justified, then, in inferring that each member of
the species inherits the tendencies of the species to seek goals of these
several types.
Man also is a member of an animal species. And this species also has
its natural goals, or its inborn tendencies to seek goals of certain types.
This fact is not only indicated very clearly by any comparison of human
with animal behavior, but it is so obvious a fact that no psychologist of the
least intelligence fails to recognize it, however inadequately, not even if he
obstinately reduces their number to a minimum of three and dubs them
the "prepotent reflexes" of sex, fear, and rage. Others write of "primary
desires," or of "dominant urges," or of "unconditioned reflexes," or of appe-
tites, or of cravings, or of congenital drives, or of motor sets, or of in-
herited tendencies or propensities; lastly, some, bolder than the rest, write
of "so-called instincts," For instincts are out of fashion just now with
American psychologists ; and to write of instincts without some such
qualification as "so-called" betrays a reckless indifference to fashion amount-
ing almost to indecency. Yet the word "instinct" is too good to be lost
to our science. Better than any other word it points to the facts and the
problems with which I am here concerned.
The hormic psychology imperatively requires recognition not only of
instinctive action but of instincts. Primarily and traditionally the words
"instinct" and "instinctive" point to those types of animal action which
are complex activities of the whole organism; which lead the creature to
the attainment of one or other of the goals natural to the species; which
are in their general nature manifested by all members of the species under
appropriate circumstances; which exhibit nice adaptation to circumstances;
and which, though often suggesting intelligent appreciation of the end
to be gained and the means to be adopted, yet owe little or nothing to
the individual's prior experience.^
^Two very different prejudices have cooperated to give currency in recent
psychology to a very perverted and misleading view of instinctive action. On
the one hand are those observers of animal life (of whom Fabre and Wasmann
are the most distinguished) whose religious philosophy forbids them to admit the
14 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
The words as thus traditionally used point to a problem. The word
"instinctive" describes actions of this type. The word "instinct" implies
that unknown something which expresses itself in the train of instinctive
action directed towards a particular natural goal. What is the nature of
that X to which the word "instinct" points? The problem has provoked
much speculation all down the ages; the answers ranging from 'the finger
of God' to 'a rigid bit of reflex nervous mechanism.'
It is characteristic of the hormic theory that it does not presume to give
a final and complete answer to this question in terms of entities or types
of events that enjoy well-established scientific status.
Hormic activity is an energy manifestation ; but the hormic theory does
not presume to say just what form or forms of energy or transformations of
energy are involved. It seems to involve liberation of energy potential
or latent in chemical form in the tissues; and hormic theory welcomes any
essential and close similarities between human and animal actions. Thus preju-
diced, they select and emphasize all their observations and reports of animal,
and especially of insect, behavior the stereotyped unvarying instances, those which
seem to imply lack of all individual adaptation to unusual situations. Thus they
emphasize the quasi-mechanical character of instinctive behavior.
On the other hand, the mechanists, moved by the desire to find instinctive
actions mechanically explicable, also select and emphasize these same instances
and aspects, neglecting to notice the very numerous and striking evidences of
adaptability of instinctive action in ways that can only be called intelligent. Thus
both parties are led into regarding instinctive behavior as always a train of
action precisely predetermined in the innate constitution of the animal. And this
view, of course, readily lends itself to interpretation of all instinctive action as
the mechanistic play of chains of reflexes, the touching-off by stimuli of so-called
"action-patterns" congenitally formed in the nervous system.
Yet any impartial review of instinctive behavior [an excellent example is
Major R. W. G. Kingston's recent book (8)] shows clearly the falsity of this
view, shows beyond dispute that instinctive action (even among the insects) does
not consist in any rigidly prescribed sequence of movements, and that any par-
ticular type of instinctive behavior cannot be characterized by the particular
movements and sequences of movements but only by the type of goal towards
which the action is directed. Any such review reveals clearly two much neg-
lected facts: (1) that very difFerent instincts of the one animal may express them-
selves in very similar trains of movement; (2) that one instinct may express
itself in a great variety of movements. A dog racing along with utmost concen-
tration of energy in the effort of speedy locomotion may be pursuing his prey;
he may be fleeing from a larger pursuing dog or leopard; or he may be rushing
to join a concourse of dogs. On the other hand, in either fighting or pursuing
and seizing his prey, he may bring into play a very large proportion of his total
capacities for coordinated movement, his native motor mechanisms; and many
of the motor mechanisms which he brings into play are identical in the two cases.
Or consider the male pigeon in the two very different instinctive activities of
fighting and courting; the forms of bodily activity he displays are in many re-
spects so similar that an inexperienced observer may be unable to infer which
instinct is at work in him. In both, all the motor mechanisms of locomotion and
of self-display, of flying, strutting, walking, running, and vocalization, are in
turn brought into action ; few, if any, of the many motor manifestations are
peculiar to the expression of either instinct. These facts are very difficult to in-
terpret in terms of neurology; but that difficulty does not justify us in denying
or ignoring them. The tendency to deny or ignore the many facts of behavior
that present this difficulty has long been dominant in American psychology and
is a bar to progress of the first magnitude.
WILLIAM McDOUGALL 15
information about such transformations that physiological chemistry can
furnish. But it refuses to go beyond the facts and to be bound by current
hypotheses of physical science; and it refuses to be blinded to the essential
facts. And the most essential facts are (a) that the energy manifestation
is guided into channels such that the organism approaches its goal; (b)
that this guidance is effected through a cognitive activity, an awareness,
however vague, of the present situation and of the goal; (c) that the
activity, once initiated and set on its path through cognitive activity, tends
to continue until the goal is attained; (d) that, when the goal is attained,
the activity terminates; (e) that progress towards and attainment of the
goal are pleasurable experiences, and thwarting and failure are painful
or disagreeable experiences.
These statements imply that hormic activity is essentially mental activity,
involving always cognition or awareness, striving initiated and governed
by such cognition, and accruing satisfaction or dissatisfaction. The theory
holds that these are three fundamental aspects of all hormic activity, dis-
tinguishable by abstraction, but not separable or capable of occurring in
nature as separate events. Thus it necessarily holds that hormic activity
can be exhibited only by organisms or natural entities that have a certain
complexity of organization, such entities as have been traditionally called
monads. And it inclines to the view that the simplest form under which
such monads appear to us as sensible phenomena is that of the single living
cell. The theory does not seek to explain the genesis of such complex
organizations by the coming together of simpler entities. It inclines to
regard any attempt at such a genetic account (such, for example, as has
been attempted by various exponents of emergent evolution) as inevitably
fruitless: for it regards with extreme scepticism the common assumption
that every thing and event can in principle be analyzed into some complex
of ultimately simple things and events; and it is especially sceptical of the
emergentists' assumption that a conjunction of purely mechanistic events
can result in the emergence of teleological events.^
The theory is ready to welcome and accept any evidence which physical
science can furnish of hormic activity, however lowly, in the inorganic
sphere, and is ready to use such evidence to build a bridge between the
organic and the inorganic realms; but it is content to aWait the verdict of
the physicists, confident that its own facts and formulations will stand fast
whether that verdict prove to be positive or negative. In short, the hormic
theory holds that where there is life there is mind ; and that, if there has
been continuity of evolution of the organic from the inorganic, there must
have been something of mind, some trace of mental nature and activity in
the inorganic from which such emergence took place.
The Adequacy of the Hormic Theory
The question arises : Is the hormic theory as here stated adequate to the
interpretation of all forms of animal and human activity? And the ques-
*Cf. my Modern Materialism and Emergent Evolution (21).
16 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
tion takes two forms: First, can the hormic theory be carried over from
psychology into physiology? Can it be profitably applied to the inter-
pretation of the activities of the several organs and tissues? This is a
very deep question vi^hich only the future course of science can answer.
But we notice that biologists are becoming increasingly conscious of the
inadequacy of mechanistic principles to their problems, especially the
problems of evolution, of heredity, of self-regulation, of the maintenance
of organic equilibrium, of the restitution of forms and functions after dis-
turbance of the normal state of affairs in the organism, and are seeing
that, as Dr. E. S. Russell (29) emphatically insists, "the essential differ-
ence between the inorganic unit and the living individual is that the
activities of all living things tend toward some end and are not easily
diverted from achieving this end all goes on in the organic world
as if living beings strove actively towards an end what differenti-
ates a living thing from all inorganic objects or units is this persistence of
striving, this effort towards the expression of deep-lying distinctive tend-
encies." We therefore are all well disposed to agree with this physiologist
when he writes: "We must interpret all organic activities as in some
sense the actions of a psychophysical individual. "•'^° That is to say, we
may reasonably hope that it may become increasingly possible to extend
the hormic principle to the elucidation of fundamental problems of physi-
ology and of general biology.
Secondly, are the inborn impulses {die Triebe) the only sources of
motive power? For this is the thesis of the hormic theory in the pure
form as propounded in my Social Psychology in 1908 (13). Let me cite
a restatement of it by Professor James Drever of Edinburgh (2). "The
basis of the developed mind and character of man must be sought in the
original and inborn tendencies of his nature. From these all development
and education must start, and with these all human control, for the pur-
poses of education and development, as for the purposes of social and
community life, must operate. These are more or less truisms, but they
are truisms which have been ignored in much of the educational practice
^"Dr. J. S. Haldane (3), distinguished as one of the most exact of experimental
physiologists, referring to the notion that life and mind may have emerged from
a lifeless and mindless, strictly mechanistic realm, writes: "I must frankly confess
that to me it seems that such ideas are not clearly thought out. In fact they con-
vey to me no meaning vyhatever. It is very different, however, if we conclude
that in spite of superficial appearances something of conscious behavior must
in reality be present behind what appears to us as the mere blind organic be-
havior of lower organisms or plants," to which he adds, though on very different
grounds — behind also "what appears to be the mere mechanical behaviour of the
inorganic world." In the same volume he rightly insists: "The knowledge repre-
sented in the psychological or humanistic group of sciences is not only differenti-
ated clearly from other kinds of scientific knowledge, but is the most fundamental
variety of scientific knowledge." He adds: "I am thoroughly convinced of the
limitations attached to physiological interpretation of human behaviour. At pres-
ent there is what seems to me an exaggerated idea among the general public, not
of the importance of psychological knowledge, for its importance can hardly be
overestimated, but of the importance of mere physiological or even physical treat-
ment of human behaviour."
WILLIAM McDOUGALL 17
of the past, and in many of the best intentioned efforts at social reorganiza-
tion and reform. The original human nature, with which the psychol-
ogist is concerned, consists, first of all, of capacities, such as the capacity
to have sensations, to perceive, to reason, to learn, and the like, and, sec-
ondly, of conscious impulses, the driving forces to those activities without
which the capacities would be meaningless," And "though control of
primitive impulses becomes more and more complex, it is always a control
by that which draws its controlling force, ultimately and fundamentally,
from primitive impulses, never a control ab extra." Yet again : "Educa-
tionally the most important fact to keep in mind with regard to these
specific 'emotional' tendencies is that in them we have the original,
and ultimately the sole important, motive forces determining an individual's
behavior, the sole original determinants of the ends he will seek to attain,
as of the interests which crave satisfaction."
If my knowledge of contemporary thought is not gravely at fault, four
and only four attempts to supplement the pure hormic theory as here con-
cisely stated call for consideration.
First, we have to consider a view maintained by Professor Drever
himself, inconsistently as it seems to me, with his statements cited in the
foregoing paragraphs. He writes in the same treatise: "It must be
granted that, in the human being, in addition to the instinctive springs
of action, or motive forces which determine behavior prior to individual
experience, pleasure and pain are also motive forces depending upon indi-
vidual experience" (2, p. 149). To admit this is to combine hedonism
with hormism; and in such combination Dr. Drever does not stand alone;
he is in the good company of Professor S. Freud and all his many
disciples.
I take Dr. Drever's statement to mean that man learns to anticipate
pain or pleasure from this or that form of activity and in consequence to
turn away from the former and to choose the latter. Now, in so far as
we have in view the modes of activity adopted or followed as means to our
goals, this is certainly true doctrine. Past experiences of pain and pleas-
ure attending our activities are remembered; they determine our antici-
pations of pain and pleasure; and we choose our forms of activity, our
lines of approach to our goals, in accordance with such anticipations. But
more than this is implied in the statement that "pleasure and pain are also
motive forces," as also in Freud's "pleasure principle." It is implied that
desire of pleasure and the aversion from pain are motive forces which
impel us to goals independently of the hormic impulses. It is a mixed
theory of action, which supplements the hormic theory with a measure of
hedonism. Is this true? Does the hormic theory require this admix-
ture? The answer seems clear in the case of pain. The anticipation of
pain from a certain course of action can only deter from that line of activ-
ity; it turns us not from the goal of that activity, but only from the form
of activity previously followed in pursuit of that goal ; and, if we can find
no other line of activity that promises attainment, we may in the end
cease to strive toward that goal; but the anticipation of the pain is not
18 • PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
in itself a motive to action. Pain in the proper sense is always the ac-
companiment or consequence of thwarting of desire, of failure of impulse
or effort; and, if we desire nothing, if we strive after no goals, we shall
suffer no pains. This is the great truth underlying the Buddhist phil-
osophy of renunciation.
There is one seeming exception that arises from the ambiguity of lan-
guage; the word "pain" is applied not only to feeling that results from
thwarting and failure but also to a specific quality or qualities of sensation.
And we are accustomed to regard "pain-sensation" as a spur to action, and
also the aversion from anticipated "pain-sensation" as a motive to activity
the goal of which is the avoidance of such "pain." Here is a grand source
of confusion ; which, however, is cleared away forthwith when we recog-
nize the fact that pain-sensation from any part of the body is a specific
excitant of fear, and fear is or involves a powerful hormic impulse.
It is notorious that threats of physical punishment, if they are to spur
the unwilling child or man to activity, must be pushed to the point of
exciting fear in him; short of that they are of no avail. The case might
be argued at great length; but the citation of this one fact may suffice.
The activity prompted by physical pain is an activity of one of the most
deeply rooted and powerful of the hormic impulses, the impulse of fear.
If the hormic impulse excited by impressions that involve pain-sensation
is not in every case the impulse of the fear instinct, then we can interpret
the facts only by postulating a specific impulse of avoidance or withdrawal
rooted in a correspondingly specific and simple instinct, closely comparable
to the instinct to scratch an itching spot.
The case for desire of pleasure as a motive force is less easily disposed
of, the problem is more subtle (18).
Let us note first that pleasure is an abstraction, not a concrete entity or
situation; it is a feeling qualifying activity. Hence we find that "pleas-
ures" we are alleged to pursue are pleasurable forms of activity. In every
case the activity in question is sustained by some impulse or desire of other
nature and origin than a pure desire for pleasure, namely, some hormic
impulse. Take the simplest instances, most confidently cited by the hedo-
nist— the pleasures of the table and of sex. A man is said to seek the
pleasures of the table. What in reality he does is to satisfy his appetite for
food, his hormic urge to eat, in the most pleasurable manner, choosing
those food-substances which, in the light of past experience, he knows will
most effectively stimulate and satisfy this impulse. But without the ap-
petite, the hormic urge, there is no pleasure. So also of the man alleged
to pursue the pleasures of sex. Moved or motivated by the sex urge he
chooses those ways of indulging it which experience has shown him to be
most effective in stimulating and satisfying the urge. But without the
hormic urge there is no pleasure to be had.
These instances seem to be typical of all the multitude of cases in which
men are said to seek pleasure as their goal. Take the complex case of the
man who is said to pursue the pleasure of fame or of power. In pursuit
of fame or power many a man shuns delights and lives laborious days.
WILLIAM McDOUGALL 19
But he is moved, his efForts are sustained, by the desire of fame or power,
not by the desire of pleasure. If there were not within him the hormic
urge to figure in the eyes of the world or to exert power over others, he
could find no pleasure in pursuing and in attaining these goals, and he
would not in fact pursue them. You may paint the delights of fame or
of power in the most glowing colors to the boy or man who is by nature
meek and humble; and your eloquence will fail to stir within him any
responsive chord, for in his composition the chord is lacking. On the
other hand, in the man in whom the self-assertive impulse is naturally
i strong, this impulse readily becomes the desire of fame or of power; and,
under the driving power of such desire, he may sacrifice all "pleasures,"
perhaps with full recognition that fame can come only after his death, or
that the attainment of power will involve him in most burdensome and
exacting responsibilities. Without the hormic urge which sets his goal,
neither will he pursue those goals nor would he find any pleasure in the
possession of fame or power, if these came to him as a free gift of the gods.
These surely are simple truths illustrated by countless instances in fiction
and in real life.
Take one more instance. Revenge, it is said, is sweet; and men are
said to seek the pleasures of revenge. But, if the injured man is a meek
and humble creature, if the injury does not evoke in him a burning desire
to humble his adversary, to get even with him, to assert his power over
him, the statement that revenge is sweet will have no meaning for him,
he will have no impulse to avenge his injury, and the imagining of injury
to the adversary will neither afford nor promise him pleasure. On the
other hand, injury to the proud self-assertive man provokes in him the
vengeful impulse, and in planning his revenge he may well gloat upon the
prospect of hurting his adversary; and, if he is a peculiarly sophisticated
and ruthless person, he may choose such means to that goal as experience
leads him to believe will be most gratifying, most pleasurable.
It is needless to multiply alleged instances of pleasure-seeking; all alike
fall under this one formula : the pleasure is not an end in itself ; it is inci-
dental to the pursuit and attainment of some goal towards which some
hormic impulse sets.
Perhaps a word should be added concerning beauty. Surely, it may
be urged, we seek to attain the beautiful and we value the beautiful ob-
ject for the sake of the pleasure it gives us ! Here again hedonist aesthetic
inverts the true relations. The foundations of all aesthetic theory are
here in question. It must suffice to say that the beauty of an object con-
sists not in its power to excite in us a complex of sensations of pleasurable
feeling-tone (if it were so, a patchwork quilt should be as beautiful as a
Turner landscape) ; it consists rather in the power of the object to evoke
in us a multitude of conations that work together in delicately balanced
harmony to attain satisfaction in a rich and full appreciation of the sig-
nificance of the object.-^^
^This topic is closely connected with the much neglected problem of the ac-
20 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
A second widely accepted supplementation of the hormic theory is that
best represented by the thesis of Dr. R. S. Woodworth's little book,
Dynamic Psychology (32). I have criticized this at length elsewhere
(15) and can therefore deal with it briefly.
Woodworth's thesis may be briefly stated by adopting the language of
the passage cited above from Dr. Drever, in which he distinguishes be-
tween "capacities" for activities, on the one hand, and, on the other, "con-
scious impulses, the driving forces to those activities without which the
capacities would be meaningless."
The "capacities" that are inborn become immensely differentiated and
multiplied in the growing child ; all these may be divided roughly into two
great classes, capacities of thinking (of ideation) and capacities of acting,
of skilled movement. Now Woodworth's contention is that every such
capacity is intrinsically not only a capacity but also a spring of energy, a
source of impulsive or motive power; it is implied that every capacity to
think or to act in a certain way is also ipso facto a tendency to think or
to act in that way. To put it concretely — if I have acquired the capacity
to recite the alphabet, I have acquired also a tendency to repeat it; if I
have acquired the capacity to solve quadratic equations, I have acquired
a tendency to solve them ; and so on of all the multitude of specific capacities
of thinking and acting which all of us acquire.
This is the modern form of the old intellectualistic doctrine that ideas
are forces; and its long sway proves that it has its allure, if no solid
foundation. The hormic theory contends that there is no truth, or, if
any truth, then but the very smallest modicum in this doctrine. It asks:
If each one of the immense array of capacities possessed by a man is also
intrinsically a tendency to exercise itself, what determines that at any
moment only a certain very small number of them come into action? The
old answer was given in the theory of the association of ideas. Its defects,
its utter inadequacy, have been expounded again and again. Yet it rears
its head again in this disguised modern form. The hormic answer to the
question is that the "capacities" are but so much latent machinery, func-
tional units of differentiated structure; and that the hormic impulses.
quirement of "tastes," a problem I have dealt with in my Character and the Con-
duct of Life (20).
Since this article was put in print the International Library of Psychology has
published a volume {Pleasure and Instinct: A Study in the Psychology of Human
Actions. London & New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1930.) wholly devoted to the
examination of the question discussed in the foregoing section. The author, A. H.
Burlton Allen, after carefully examining the question from every point of view
and in the light of all available evidence arrives at the conclusion that the pure
hormic theory as defined in this article and in my various books is the only tenable
theory of human action. The writer says on p. 273 : "Thus it is no doubt true
that there is in the feelings no original force that leads to action. The source of
all movement and action lies in the driving force of the main instincts, that is to
say, in the inherent energy of the organism striving towards outlet in the forms
prescribed by its inherited structure. The feelings of pleasure and unpleasure
are secondary results dependant on the successful or unsuccessful working of these
instincts."
WILLIAM McDOUGALL 21
working largely through the system of associative links between "capaci-
ties," bring into play in turn such capacities as are adapted for service in
the pursuit of the natural goals of those impulses. In other words, it
maintains that the whole of the machinery of capacities and associative
links is dominated by the "interest" of the moment, by conation, by the
prevalent desires and active impulses at work in the organism.
It points to "capacities," simple or complex, that remain latent and
unused for years, and then, when "the interest" in whose service they
were developed is revived, are awakened once more by some change in the
man's circumstances, are brought back into action in the service of the
renewed interest ; as when a man, having become a parent, recites once
more for his children the nursery rh5^mes and the fairy stories he has
learned in childhood.
It may be suggested that the current psychoanalytic treatment of the
"complex" is in harmony with Woodworth's principle; that in this special
case "ideas" or "capacities" are validly treated as possessing, in their
own right, motive power or conative energy.
It is true that much of the language of Professor Freud and other
psychoanalysts seems to countenance this interpretation of the facts. But
j it must be remembered that the energy of the complex is regarded as in
some sense derived from some instinct, generally the sex instinct; it is
libido. And though these authors speak of emotionally charged ideas, or
ideas besetzt with emotional energy (as though each complex owed its
power to a charge of libido imparted once for all to it), yet it is, I think,
in line with Freud's general treatment to say that such a "complex" is a
t "capacity," a structural unit, which has acquired such connections with
the sex (or other) instinct that the libido j or hormic energy of the instinct,
readily flows into it and works through it, and thus is determined to
modes of expression recognizable as due to the influence of the complex.
i Consider a fear complex, say a phobia for running water. There has been
\ acquired a peculiar formation which leads to a paroxysm of fear with
I great expenditure of energy upon the perception of running water, a
reaction which may be repeated at long intervals through many years.
Are we to suppose that this formation, the complex, contains as an integral
■ part of itself all the energy and all the complex structural organization
which every manifestation of fear implies, that each fear complex involves a
duplication of the fear organization peculiar to itself ? Surely not ! The
essence .of the new formation is such a functional relation between the
perceptual sj'^stem concerned in the recognition of running water and the
whole apparatus of fear, that the perception becomes one of the various
afferent channels through which the fear system may be excited. In this
connection it is to be remembered that a sufficient mass of evidence points
to the thalamic region as the principal seat of the great affective systems or
centers of instinctive excitement. In neurological terms, the perception
of running water is in the main a cortical event, while the manifestation
of fear is in the main a subcortical or thalamic event; and the essential
neural ground of the complex manifestation is a special, acquired cortico-
22 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
thalamic connection between the two events, or, more strictly, between
the two neuron systems concerned in the two events and respectively located
in cortex and in thalamus.
The hormist can find no clear instances that support Woodworth's
thesis and can point to a multitude of instances which indicate an absence
of all driving power in the "capacities" as such. He maintains therefore
that the burden of proof lies upon his opponents; and, though he cannot
conclusively prove the negative thesis, that no "capacity" has driving
power, he sees no ground for accepting this supplement to the hormic theory.
There remain for brief consideration two very modern theories which
claim to find the hormic theory in need of supplementation and to supply
such supplement.
I refer first to the psychology of Dr. Ludwig Klages and of his able
disciple, Dr. Hans Prinzhorn.^^ According to this teaching (I write
subject to correction, for it is not easy to grasp), the hormic theory is true
of the life of animals and of the lower functions of the human organism,
of all the life of instinct and perceptual activity; but the life of man is
complicated by the cooperation of two factors of a different order, Geist
and Wille, spirit and will, two aspects of a higher purely spiritual principle
which is not only of an order different from that of the hormic impulses
but is in many respects antagonistic to them, a disturbing influence that
threatens to pervert and even destroy the instinctive basis of human life.
I know not what to say of this doctrine. To me it seems to involve a
radical dualism not easily to be accepted. It seems to contain echoes of old
ways of thinking, of the old opposition of the instinct of animals to the
reason of man, of Hegel's objectified spirit, even of Descartes' dualism,
the animal body a machine complicated in man by the intervention of
reason, although, it is true, these authors repudiate whole-heartedly the
mechanical physiology. I suggest that the Geist and Wille which, as
these authors rightly insist, make human life so widely different from the
life of even the highest animals, are to be regarded not as some mysterious
principles of a radically different order from any displayed in animal life;
that they are rather to be identified with what the Germans call objective
Geist, objectified spirit of humanity, the system of intellectual process and
of cultural values which has been slowly built up as the traditional posses-
sion of each civilization and largely fixed in the material forms of art and
science, in architecture, in tools, in written and printed words, in enduring
institutions of many kinds. Each human being absorbs from his social
environment some large part of this objectified spirit; and it is this, work-
ing within him, that gives rise to the higher manifestations of human life
which in Klages' doctrine are ascribed to Geist and Wille. Until this
interpretation of the facts shall have been shown to be inadequate, there
would seem to be no suificient foundation for the new dualism of Klages
and Prinzhorn.
^Set forth in numerous works of which one only, Klages' Psychology of Charac-
ter (10) has been translated into English. Prinzhorn's Leib-seele Einheit (28)
gives the best brief approach to this system.
WILLIAM McDOUGALL 23
Lastly, I mention an interesting supplement to the hormic theory offered
in a recent book by Mr. Olaf Stapledon (30). The author begins by accept-
ing the hormic theory in a thoroughgoing teleological sense. But he goes
on to say: "A human being's inheritance would seem to include a capacity
for discovering and conating tendencies beyond the inherited nature of his
own organism, or his own biological needs." And he chooses, as the clear-
est illustrations of what he means, instances of love of one person for an-
other. Criticizing my view that in sex love we have a sentiment in which
the principal motive powers are the impulses of the sexual and of the
parental instincts in reciprocal interplay, he writes: "But this theory
ignores an important difference between parental behavior and love, and
between the tender emotions and love. Parents do, as a matter of fact,
often love their children; but they do also often merely behave parentally
toward them, and feel tender emotion toward them. The love of a
parent for a child may be said to be 'derived' from the parental tendency,
in the sense that this tendency first directed attention to the child, and
made possible the subsequent discovery of the child as itself a living centre
of tendencies. And it may well be that in all love there is something of
this instinctive parental behaviour. But genuine love, for whatever kind
of object, is very different from the tender emotion and from all strictly
instinctive parental behaviour Genuine love entails the es-
pousal of the other's needs in the same direct manner in which one espouses
one's own private needs Merely instinctive behaviour is, so to speak,
the conation of a tendency or complex of tendencies of the agent's own
body or person. Genuine love is the conation of tendencies of another
person if love occurs, or in so far as it occurs, the other is regarded,
not as a stimulus, but as a centre of tendencies demanding conation in
their own right."
Referring to the patriotic sentiment of Joan of Arc, Stapledon writes:
"That sentiment certainly did become the ruling factor of her life. And,
further, whatever its instinctive sources, her cognition of her social environ-
ment turned it into something essentially different from any mere blend
of instinctive impulses. The chief weakness of instinct psychology is that
it fails, in spite of all efforts to the contrary, to do justice to the part
played in behaviour by environment. And this failure is most obvious in
human behaviour." He adds that the "instinct psychologists
have left out the really distinctive feature of human behaviour."
What, then, is this distinctive feature? Here is a new challenge to the
hormic theory; a denial not of its truth, up to a certain point, but of its
adequacy to cover all the facts and especially the facts of distinctively
human activity.
The "distinctive feature," this alleged source of conations not derived
from native impulses, is defined as follows: "I am suggesting, then, that
the essential basis of conation is not that some tendency of the organism,
or of a simple inherited mental structure, is the source (direct or indirect)
of every conative act, but that every cognition of tendency may give rise to
A conative act. Every tendency which is an element in the mental content
24 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
suggests a conation, and is the ground of at least incipient conation. If
the tendency does not conflict with other and well-established conative
ends, its fulfilment will be desired."
Now, obviously, if this doctrine be true, it is very important. For
among tendencies the cognition of any one of which gives rise to correspond-
ing conation, the desire of its fulfilment, Mr. Stapledon includes not only
all human and animal tendencies, but also all physical tendencies, e.g.,
the tendency of a stream of water to run downhill, of a stone to fall to
the ground, of a needle to fly to the magnet. Of every tendency he asserts :
"In the mere act of apprehending it, we desire its fulfilment." And "if we
ask — 'How does the primitive self expand into the developed self?' we
find the answer is that the most important way of expanding is by the
cognition of a wider field of objective tendencies and the conative espousal
of those tendencies" ; for "any objective tendency may enter the mental
content and influence the will in its own right."
I find this theory very intriguing. But I find also the grounds ad-
vanced as its foundation quite unconvincing. They are two : first, the
alleged inadequacy of the instinct theory; secondly, the assertion that
every cognition of any tendency tends to evoke corresponding or congruent
conation. As regards the former ground, I am, no doubt, a prejudiced
witness, yet, in Stapledon's chosen instance of love, I cannot admit the
inadequacy. I admit that Joan of Arc's patriotic behavior was "different
from any mere blend of instinctive impulses." Here Stapledon has failed,
I think, to grasp the implication of the theory of the sentiments. In the
working of a developed sentiment, whether love of country, love of parent
for child, or of man for woman, we have to do not merely with a blending
and conflicting of primitive impulses. Such a sentiment is a most complex
organization comprising much elaborated cognitive structure as well as
instinctive dispositions, and its working can only properly be viewed in the
light of the principles of emergence and Gestalt.
Further, Stapledon seems to neglect to take account of the principles of
passive and of active sympath3^ It is true, I think, that the cognition of
a tendency at work in another person tends to evoke or bring into activity
the corresponding tendency in the observer ; and in very sympathetic
personalities this sympathetic induction works strongly and frequently.
When we recognize fully these facts, we cover, I suggest, the manifestation
of such complex sentiments as love, which Stapledon chooses to illustrate
the inadequacy of the hormic principles. As to his essential novelty, his
claim that cognition of any tendency, even merely physical tendency, gives
rise to conation similarly directed, I remain entirely unconvinced. There
are two parts of this thesis, the second depending on the former; and both
seem to me highly questionable. First, he assumes that the conation
rooted in the instinctive nature arises through cognition of an active
tendency at work in oneself. This is to make a two- or three-stage affair
of the simplest impulsive action. First, the tendency is aroused into
activity, presumably by cognition of some object or situation; secondly, it
is cognized ; thirdly, this cognition gives rise to conation. Is not this
WILLIAM McDOUGALL 25
pure mythology? Is it correct to say that we strive only when we
"espouse" a tendency which we cognize as at work within us? Is it not
rather true that the activity of the tendency primarily aroused by cog-
nition of some object or situation is the conation which proceeds under
guidance of further cognition. It seems clear that the instinctive impulse
may and often does work subconsciously, that is, without being cognized ;
and in any case, its working is so obscure to cognition that the majority of
psj^chologists, failing to cognize or recognize it in any form, deny the
reality of such experience of active tendency.
Admitting the wide range in human life of the sympathetic principle,
admitting that, in virtue of this principle, cognition of desire in others
evokes similar desire in ourselves, or a tendency towards the same goal, or
a tendency to cooperate with or promote the striving cognized in the
other, I cannot find sufficient ground for believing that cognition of
tendency in physical objects also directly evokes in us congruent tendency
or conation. I would maintain that only when in the mood of poetry or
primitive animism we personify natural objects and events, only then do we
feel sympathy, or antagonism; and on the whole we are as liable to feel
antagonism as sympathy. When I contemplate the flow of a river I
murmur with the poet, "Even the weariest river winds somewhere safe
to sea," and may feel a sympathetic inclination to glide with the current;
but I may equally well (especially if a resident of the lower Mississippi
valley) regard the flowing river as a hostile force against which I incline
to struggle, or (if I am a thrifty Scot) as a distressing waste of energy;
and, if it is a mountain stream, I may even be moved to try to dam its
course. Immersed in the water, I am equally ready to enjoy swimming
with the current or struggling up-stream, letting myself be rushed along
with the breaker or hurling myself against it. If I contemplate the
wind gently moving the branches of a tree or caressing my face, I may
feel it to be a friendly power and exclaim, "O Wild West Wind, thou
breath of autumn's being" ; or I may observe with delight the little
breezes that "dusk and shiver." But if I apprehend the wind as tearing
at a tree, buffeting the ship, or lashing the waves to fury, I am all against
it as a fierce and cruel power to be fought and withstood ; I sympathize
with the straining tree, the laboring ship, or the rock or stout building that
stands foursquare to all the winds that blow. In short, my reaction to
the wind varies as it seems to whisper, to whistle, to sing, to murmur,
to sigh, to moan, to roar, to bluster, to shriek, to rage, to tear, to storm.
Such sympathies and antagonisms provoked by the forces of nature are
the very breath of nature poetry; but they seem to me to afford no support
to Mr. Stapledon's thesis. The primitive animistic tendency is, I submit,
an extension of primitive or passive sympathy; an imaginative extension
to inanimate nature of the emotional stirrings we directly or intuitively
discern in our fellow-creatures, rather than an immediate and fundamental
reaction to all cognition of physical agency, as Mr. Stapledon maintains.
In gentle, highly sympathetic natures, such as Wordsworth's, it works
chiefly in the form of sympathy with natural forces; but more pugnacious
26 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
and self-assertive natures are more readily stirred to antagonism and
opposition than to congruent conation. It would seem that, as is com-
monly the case when writers on ethics undertake to construct their own
psychology, Stapledon's supplementation of the hormic psychology is de-
termined by the needs of his ethical theory rather than by consideration
of the observable facts of experience and activity.
I conclude, then, that the hormic theory is adequate and requires no
such supplementations as those examined in this section and found to be
ill-based and otiose.
The Advantages of the Hormic Theory
One advantage of the hormic theory over all others is that it enables us
to sketch in outline an intelligible, consistent, and tenable story of con-
tinuous organic evolution, evolution of bodily forms and mental functions
in intelligible relation to one another ; and this is something which no other
theory can achieve. It does not attempt the impossible task of describing
the genesis of experience out of the purely physical and of teleological
activity out of purely mechanistic events. It does not make the illegiti-
mate assumption that experience can be analyzed into and regarded as
compounded out of simple particles or entities. It insists that experience,
or each phase of it, is alwaj^s a unitary whole having aspects that are
distinguishable but not separable. It finds good reason to believe that the
life of the simplest creature involves such experience, however utterly
vague and undifferentiated it may be. It regards the story of organic evolu-
tion as one of progressive differentiation and specialization of structure, of
experience and of activity from the most rudimentary and simplest forms.
It regards the striving capacities, the hormic tendencies, of each species as
having been differentiated out of a primal urge to live, to be active, to seek,
to assimilate, to build up, to energize, to counteract the forces of dissolution.
Such differentiations of striving involve parallel differentiations of the cog-
nitive function subserving the discrimination of goals. And still further
differentiation of it for the discernment and adaptation of means results in
longer and more varied chains of activity through which remoter and more
difficult goals are attained. The theory recognizes that only in the human
species does cognitive differentiation attain such a level that detailed fore-
sight of remote goals becomes possible, with such definite hormic fixation on
the goal as characterizes action properly called purposive in the fullest sense
of the word. But it claims that, though the foresight of even the higher
animals is but of short range, envisaging only the result to be attained by
the next step of action, and that perhaps very vaguely, the cognitive
dispositions of the animal are often linked in such fashion as to lead on the
hormic urge from step to step, until finally the biological goal is attained
and the train of action terminates in satisfaction. It finds in human
activity and experience parallels to all the simpler forms of activity dis-
played and of experience implied in the animals. It sees in the growing
infant signs of development from almost blind striving with very short-
range and vague foresight (when its cognitive powers are still but slightly
WILLIAM McDOUGALL 27
differentiated) to increasingly long-range and more adequate foresight
enriched by the growing wealth and variety of memory. It insists that
memory is for the sake of foresight, and foresight for the sake of action;
and that neither can be validly conceived other than as the working of a
forward urge that seeks always something more behind and beyond that
which is given in sense presentation, a something more that will satisfy the
hormic urge and bring it for the time being to rest, or permit it to be
turned by new sense impressions to some new goal.
If we turn from the descriptive account of evolution to the problem of the
dynamics of the process, the hormic theory again is the only one that can
offer an intelligible and self-consistent scheme. It notes how the human
creature, through constant striving with infinitely varied circumstances,
carries the differentiation of both cognitive and striving powers far beyond
the point to which the hereditary momentum will carry them, the point
common to the species, how it develops new discriminations, modified goals
of appetition and aversion, modified trains of activity for pursuit or re-
treat. It notes that these modifications are achieved under the guidance of
the pleasure and the pain, the satisfaction and dissatisfaction, that attend
success and failure respectively; it inclines to view the evolution or rather
the epigenesis of the individual creature's adaptations as the model in the
light of which we may interpret the epigenesis of racial adaptations. Such
interpretation implies acceptance of Lamarckian transmisson; but, since
the only serious ground for rejecting this is the assumption that mechanistic
categories are sufficient in biology, an assumption which the hormic psy-
chology rejects, this implication is in its eyes no objection. Rather it
points to the increasing weight of evidence of the reality of Lamarckian
transmission.^^
The hormic theory insists that the differentiation of instinctive tenden-
cies has been, throughout the scale of animal evolution, the primary or
leading feature of each step. Bodily organs cannot be supposed to have
acquired new forms and functional capacities that remained functionless
until some congruent variation of instinctive tendency brought them into
play. Rather, it is necessary to believe that, in the case of every new
development of form or function, the first step was the variation of the
instinctive nature of the species toward such activities as required for
their efficient exercise the peculiarities of form and function in question.
Given such variation, we can understand how natural selection may have
brought about the development in the species of the peculiarities of bodily
form and function best suited to subserve such modified or new instinctive
tendency. Thus the theory overcomes the greatest difficulty of the neo-
Darwinian theory, the difficulty, namely, that, if novelties of form and
^*Since 1920 I have conducted an experiment on strictly Lamarckian principles
and have found clear-cut evidence of increasing facility in successive generations
of animals trained to execute a particular task. This very great increase of
facility seems explicable in no other way than by transmission of the modifica-
tions acquired by the efforts of the individuals. Cf. two reports in the British
I Journal of Psychology (19, 22).
28 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
function are to be established in a species, very many of the members
must have varied in the same direction at the same time and in such a
M^ide degree as will give survival value to the variation. For, given some
changed environmental conditions of a species (e.g., a grov^^ing scarcity
of animal food for the carnivorous land ancestor of the seal), the intelli-
gence common to all members might w^ell lead all of them to pursue prey
by a new method (the method of swimming and diving). And if this rela-
tively new mode of behavior became fixed, if the tendency to adopt it became
stronger through repeated successful efforts to secure prey in this fashion,
natural selection might well perpetuate all congruent bodily variations
and might eliminate variations of an opposite kind ; and thus convert the
legs of the species into flippers. This is the principle that has been named
"organic selection," rendered effective by the recognition of the causal
efficacy of hormic striving and the reality of Lamarckian transmission, a
principle which without such recognition remains of very dubious value. ^*
The hormic theory thus renders possible a workable theory of animal
evolution, one under which the mind, or the mental function of cognition-
conation, is the growing point of the organism and of the species, a
theory under which the intelligent striving of the organism is the creative
activity to which evolution is due. Surely such a theory is more acceptable
than any that pretends to illuminate the mystery of evolution by such
utterly vague terms as "orthogenesis" or "elan vital" or "the momentum of
life."
The hormic theory is radically opposed to intellectualism and all its
errors, the errors that have been the chief bane of psychology (and of
European culture in general) all down the ages. It does not set out with
some analytic description of purely cognitive experience, and then find
itself at a loss for any intelligible functional relation between this and
bodily activities. It recognizes fully the conative nature of all activity
and regards the cognitive power as everywhere the servant and the guide
of striving. Thus it is fundamentally dynamic and leads to a psychology
well adapted for application to the sciences and practical problems of
human life, those of education, of hygiene, of therapy, of social activity,
of religion, of mythology, of aesthetics, of economics, of politics and the
rest
15
Of all forms of psychology the hormic is the only one that can give to
philosophy the psychological basis essential to it. Philosophy is properly
concerned with values, with evaluation and with standards and scales of
"As formulated many years ago by the neo-Darwinians, E. B. Poulton, J. M.
Baldwin, and Lloyd Morgan.
^When a young man I was invited to dine with a distinguished economist and
a leading psychologist of that period. It was mentioned that I was taking up
psychology. "Ah!" said the economist, "Psychology! Yes, very important, very
important! Association of ideas and all that sort of thing. What!" It was
obvious to me that he did not attach the slightest importance to psychology and
had neither the faintest inkling of any bearing of it on economics, nor any intention
of seeking any such relation. From that moment dates my revulsion against the
traditional intellectualistic psychology.
WILLIAM McDOUGALL 29
value ; it seeks to establish the relative values of the goals men seek, of their
ideals, of the forms of character and types of conduct. All such valuation
is relative to human nature; a scale of values formulated with reference,
not to man as he is or may be, but to some creature of radically different
constitution would obviously be of little value to men ; and philosophy can
advance towards a true scale of values only in proportion as it founds
itself upon a true account of human nature, its realities and its potentialities.
The claim, then, that hormic psychology is the psychology needed by phil-
osophy may seem merely a repetition of the claim that it is true. But it is
more than this; for a glance at the history of philosophy shows that the
hormic psychology is the only one with which philosophy can work, the
only one on which it can establish a scale of values, that does not break to
pieces under the slightest examination.
The intellectualist philosophy, adopting an intellectualist psychology of
ideas, finds its source and criterion of all values in logical consistency of its
system; and surely it is plain that men do not and will not bear the ills
they have, still less struggle heroically against them, supported only by the
satisfaction of knowing themselves to be part of a perfectly logical system.
The mechanistic psychology can recognize no values ; can give no account
of the process of valuation. At the best it can but (as in Mr. B. Russell's
essay, "A Free Man's Worship") hurl defiance at a universe without
meaning and without value which man is powerless to alter.
The hedonist psychology consorts only with a hedonist philosophy,
which can save itself from being a philosophy of the pig-trough only by
postulating with J. S. Mill, in defiance of clarity and of logic, a profound
difference of value between higher and lower pleasures.
The hormic psychology alone offers an intelligible and consistent account
of human valuations and at the same time offers to philosophy a scientific
foundation in which freedom of the rational will of man, the power of
creating real novelties, actual and ideal, and the power of self-development
towards the ideal both of the individual and of the race, can find their
proper place consistently with its fundamental postulates. It is thus the
only foundation for a philosophy of meliorism.
The hormic theory, holding fast to the fact that cognition and conation
are inseparable aspects of all mental life, does not elaborate a scheme of the
cognitive life, a plan of the structure and functioning of the intellect, and
leave to some other discipline (be it called ethology or praxiology or
ethics) the task of giving some account of character. For it understands
that intellect and character are, as structures, just as inseparable as the
functions of cognition and conation, are but two aspects, distinguishable
only in abstraction, of the structure of personality.
Recognizing that introspection can seize and fix in verbal report only
the elaborated outcome of a vast and complex interplay of psychophysical
events, it avoids the common error of setting over against one another two
minds, or two parts of one mind or personality, under such heads as "the
Conscious" and "the Unconscious," and steadily sets its face against this
mystification, which, though it appeals so strongly to the popular taste for
the mysterious and the bizarre, is profoundly misleading.
30 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
It recognizes that the fundamental nature of the hormic impulse is to
work towards its natural goal and to terminate or cease to operate only
when and in so far as its natural goal is attained ; that the impulse which, in
the absence of conflicting impulses, works toward its goal in trains, long
or short, of conscious activity (activity, that is, which we can introspectively
observe and report with very various degrees of clearness and adequacy)
is apt to be driven from the field of conscious activity by conflicting im-
pulses ; that, when thus driven from the conscious field, it is not necessarily
(perhaps not in any instance) arrested, terminated, brought to zero; that,
rather, any impulse, if it is driven from the conscious field before its goal
is attained, continues to work subterraneously, subconsciously, and, so work-
ing, may obtain partial expressions in the conscious field and in action,
expressions which often take the form of not easily interpretable distortions
of conscious thinking and of bodily action; that such subconscious activity
(but presumably not in any strict sense unconscious activity, far removed
though it be from the possibility of introspective observation and report)
is a normal feature of the complex life of man, in whom so many natural
impulses are checked and repressed by those evoked through the demands
of society; that in this way we are to interpret the phenomena now
attracting the attention of experimental psychologists under the heads of
"perseveration" and "secondary function," as well as all the many morbid
and quasi-morbid phenomena of dream life, hallucinations, delusions,
compulsions, obsessions, and all the multitudinous bodily and mental symp-
toms of functional disorder.
The principles of the hormic theory are capable of extension downwards
from the conscious life of man, not only to the more explicitly teleological
actions of animals, but also to the problems of physiology, the problems of
the regulation and interaction of the functioning of all the tissues. It is
thus the truly physiological psychology, the psychology that can assimi-
late and apply the findings of physiology, and in turn can illuminate the
problems of physiology, and thus lead to a comprehensive science of the
organism; a science which will not regard the organism as a machine
with conscious processes somehow mysteriously tacked on to it as "epi-
phenomena," but a science which will regard the organism as a true
organic unity all parts of which are in reciprocal interplay with all other
parts and with the whole; a whole which is not merely the sum of the
parts, but a synthetic unity maintained by the systematic reciprocal inter-
action of all the parts, a unity of integration, a colonial system of lesser
units, whose unity is maintained by the harmonious hormic activity of its
members in due subordination to the whole.
The hormic psychology has the advantage that it does not pretend to
know the answers to the great unsolved riddles of the universe. It leaves
to the future the solution of such problems as the relation of the organic
to the inorganic realm, the origin or advent of life in our world, the
place and destiny of the individual and of the race in the universe, the
possibility of powers and potentialities of the race not yet recognized by
science. In short, it does not assume any particular cosmology; it rec-
WILLIAM McDOUGALL 31
ognizes the littleness of man's present understanding; it makes for the
open mind and stimulates the spirit of inquiry, and is hospitable to all
empirical evidences and all legitimate speculations.-^®
It is impossible to set forth here the many advantages of the theory in
its detailed application to all the special problems of psychology. It must
suffice to point out that, unlike the psychologies which begin by accepting
such artificial entities of abstraction as reflexes, ^^ sensations, ideas, con-
cepts, feelings, in mechanistic interplay according to laws of association,
fusion, reproduction, and what-not, it regards all experience as expressive
of a total activity that is everywhere hormic, selective, teleological. Thus
its recognition of the selective goal-seeking nature of our activity, of all
the facts implied by the words "desire," "motivation," "attention," and
"will," is not reluctant, grudging, and inadequate, added under compulsion
of the facts to a mechanical system into which they refuse to fit. It recog-
nizes these aspects as fundamental, and traces the genesis of desire, atten-
tion, and rational volition from their germs in the hormic impulses of
primitive organisms.
The hormic theory projects a completely systematic and self-consistent
psychology on the basis of its recognition of the whole of the organized mind
of the adult as a structure elaborated in the service of the hormic urge to
more and fuller life. Every part of this vastly complex structure it
regards as serving to differentiate the hormic impulses, and to direct them
with ever increasing efficiency towards their natural goals in a world of
infinite complexity that offers a multitude of possible routes to any goal,
possibilities among which the organism chooses wisely according to the
richness of its apparatus of sensory apprehension and its span of synthetic
integration of many relations, the effective organization of its memory,
the nicety of its discriminatory judgments, and its sagacity in seizing, out
of a multitude of possibilities offered by sense-presentation and memory, the
possibilities most relevant to its purposes.
Especially clearly appears the advantage of the hormic psychology in
that it is able to render intelligible account of the organization of the
affective or emotional-conative side of the mental structure, a relatively
independent part or aspect of the whole of vast importance which remains
a closed book to all psychologies of the intellectualistic mechanistic types.
This side of the mental structure, which the latter psychologies ignore
^*Hence it does not close the mind to the much disputed field of alleged phen-
omena investigated by the Societies for Psychical Research, but makes for a truly
scientific attitude towards them, an attitude so conspicuous by its absence in most
men of science and especially in academic psychologists.
"It is of interest to note that from the purely physiological side protests against
the mechanical atomizing tendency multiply apace. One of the latest and most
important of these is a paper read before the International Congress of Psy-
chology in September, 1929, by Dr. G. E. Coghill, who showed good embryological
grounds for refusing to regard the spinal reflexes as functional units that first
take shape independently and later are brought into some kind of relation with
one another. He showed reason to believe that each reflex unit develops by
differentiation within the total nervous system of which it never ceases to be a
functional part in reciprocal influence with all other parts.
32 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
or recognize most inadequately with such words as "attitudes" and "sets,"
is treated a little less cavalierly by the psychoanalytic school under the all-
inclusive term — "the Unconscious," and a little more analytically under
the heads of "complexes" and "emotionally toned ideas." But the treat-
ment remains very confused and inadequate, confining itself almost ex-
clusively to the manifestations of conflict and disorder in this part of the
mind. The hormic psychology, on the other hand, insists that the elucida-
tion of this part of the mental organization is theoretically no less impor-
tant, and practically far more important, than that of the intellectual
structure and functions, and is an integral part of the task of psychology,
not a task to be handed over to some other science, be it called ethics, or
characterology, or ethology, or praxiology, or by any other name; for
it insists that we cannot understand the intellectual processes without some
comprehension of the organization and working of the affective processes
whose servants they are.
Towards the elucidation of this part of the problem of psychology it
offers the doctrine of the sentiments, the true functional systems of the
developed mind, through the development of which in the growing indi-
vidual the native hormic impulses become further differentiated and di-
rected to a multitude of new and specialized goals, a process which obscure-
ly and profoundly modifies the nature of these native tendencies; for in
these new and individually acquired systems, the sentiments, the native
tendencies are brought into various cooperations, form new dynamic syn-
theses in which their individuality is lost and from which true novelties of
desire, of emotion, and of action emerge.
Further, it aims to show how these fundamental functional systems,
the sentiments, tend to become organized in one comprehensive system,
character, which, when it is harmoniously integrated, can override all the
crude promptings of instinctive impulse however strong, can repress, re-
direct, or sublimate them on every occasion, and thus, in intimate coopera-
tion with the intellectual organization, engender that highest manifestation
of personality, rational volition.
Lastly, the hormic theory is ready to welcome and is capable of assimi-
lating all that is sound and useful in the newer schools of psychology.
Unlike the various psychologies currently taught in the American colleges,
it does not find itself indifferent or positively hostile to these newer move-
ments because incapable of assimilating what is of value in them. Rather
it finds something of truth and value in the rival psychoanalytic doctrines
of Freud, of Jung, and of Adler, in the allied doctrines of Gestalt and
Emergence, in the verstehende psychology of the Geisteswissenschaftler, in
the teachings of Spranger, of Erismann, of Jaspers, in the personalistische
psychology of Stern, in the Charackterologie of Klages and Prinzhorn,
in the child studies of the Biihlers, in the correlational studies and conclu-
sions of Spearman, and in the quite peculiar system of dynamic interpre-
tation which Dr. Kurt Lewin is developing. This catholicity, this power
of comprehensive assimilation of new truth from widely differing sj^stems
WILLIAM McDOUGALL 33
of psychological thinking is, perhaps, the best proof of the fundamental
lightness of the hormic psychology.
Origins of the Hormic Psychology
The psychology of Aristotle is thoroughly teleological ; but it can hardly
be claimed that it was purely hormic. In his time the distinction be-
tween mechanistic and teleological explanations and that between hedonist
and hormic explanations had not been sharply defined. As with most of
the later authors who approximate a hormic psychology, his hormic theory
is infected with hedonism. ^^ But it may at least be said that in Greek
thought there were already established two broadly contrasting views of
the world, the Apollinian and the Dionysian, and that Aristotle was on the
Dionysian side.^^
The Apollinian view was the parent of European intellectualism, of
which the keynote has been Socrates' identification of virtue with knowl-
edge. It has generated the allied, though superficially so different, sj^s-
tems of absolute idealism and of Newtonian mechanism; and modern
psychology, from Descartes and Locke onward, has reflected in the main
the influence of these two sj^stems, with their fundamental postulates of
the idea and the atom (or mass-point) in motion.
The inadequacy of the Apollinian view, the misleading nature of its
ideal of perfect intelligibility, of complete explanation of all events by
deduction from first principles or transparent postulates, has now been
manifested in the collapse of pure idealism and of the strictly mechanistic
phj^sics; and no less clearly in the culmination of centuries of effort to
reconcile the Apollinian ideal with the facts of nature in the doctrine of
psychophysical parallelism; a doctrine so unsatisfactory, so obviously a
makeshift, so unintelligible, so obstructive to all deeper understanding of
nature, that although it was, in one form or another, very widely accepted
at the close of the nineteenth century, the century dominated by the Apol-
linian tradition, it has now been almost universally abandoned, even by
those who have nothing to put in its place.
The Dionysian tradition has lived in the main outside the academies.
European thought, though it was dominated by Aristotle until the end of
the mediaeval period, was more concerned with reason than with action.
' "Professor W. A. Hammond summarizes Aristotle's theory of action as fol-
lows: "Desire, as Aristotle employs it, is not a purely pathic or affective element.
Feeling as such (theoretically) is completely passive — mere enjoyment of the
pleasant or mere suffering of the painful. Aristotle, however, describes desire as
an effort towards the attainment of the pleasant; i.e., he includes in it an activity
or a conative element. It is feeling with an added quality of impulse {Trieb)."
Here we see the cloven hoof of hedonism. The hormic theory would say rather
that desire is impulse {Trieb) with an added quality of feeling.
"Nietzsche seems to have been the first to point clearly to these contrasting and
rival world-views. I have attempted elsewhere (23) to show how these two
curre-nts have been represented in psychology all down the stream of European
thought and how the distinction affords the best clue to a useful classification of
psychological theories, since it distinguishes them in respect to their most funda-
mental features, their inclination towards intellectualism or towards voluntarism.
34 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
and yielded more and more to ApolHnian tradition; and, with the triumph
of intellectualism at and after the Renaissance, the Dionysian tradition
was represented only by the poets and came near to exclusion from their
pages also in the great age of Reason, the eighteenth century. The early
years of the nineteenth century saw its revival in the works of the nature
poets and of such philosophers as Oken, Schelling, and Fichte. And in
the Scottish school of mental philosophy it began to find definite expression
in psychology, especially in the works of Hutcheson and Dugald Stewart, a
movement which was well nigh extinguished by Bain's capitulation to the
intellectualism of the English association school.
On the continent of Europe, Schopenhauer revived it with his doctrine
of the primacy of will; and Von Hartmann, his disciple, may be said to
have first written psychology on a purely hormic basis,^° but marred by the
extravagance of his speculations on the unconscious. Nietzsche's scattered
contributions to psychology are throughly hormic ; and Bergson's vague doc-
trine of the "elan vital" can be classed only under the same heading.
Freud's psychology would be thoroughly hormic, if he had not spoilt it in
his earlier writings by his inclusion of the hedonist fallacy in the shape of
his "pleasure principle." My Introduction to Social Psychology (13)
was, so far as I have learned, the first attempt to construct a foundation
for psychology in strict accordance with the hormic principle; and my two
Outlines (16, 17) represent the first attempt to sketch a complete psy-
chology (normal and abnormal) built on the hormic foundation. It was
unfortunate for the hormic theory that my Social Psychology was shortly
followed by my Body and Mind (14). For my defense of animism in
that book created in many minds the impression that hormism stands or
falls with animism; an impression that has been, I judge, largely re-
sponsible for the waning of the influence of the former book in American
academic psychology. But the two theories do not necessarily hang to-
gether, as is clearly shown by Sir P. T. Nunn, that wisest of professors
of education, distinguished as mathematician, philosopher, and psychologist,
who founds his educational theory on a thoroughly hormic psychology,
while repudiating animism. In his Education, its Data and First Prin-
ciples (26), he has given the most lucid and persuasive statement of the
hormic principles. In this statement he makes what is, I believe, the first
definite proposal to use the terms horme and hormic in the sense in which
they are used in this essay.
It is fitting, then, that this essay should conclude with citations from
Dr. Nunn's book, citations that may serve further to clarify and fix the
meaning of the terms horme and hormic and the implications of the theory.
"We need a name," writes Dr. Nunn, "for the fundamental property
expressed in the incessant adjustments and adventures that make up the
tissue of life. We are directly aware of that property in our conscious
activities as an element of "drive," "urge," or felt tendency towards an
end. Psychologists call it conation and give the name conative process to
"Cf. his Die Moderne Psychologie (4).
WILLIAM McDOUGALL 35
any train of conscious activity which is dominated by such a drive and
receives from it the character of unity in diversity." Referring then to
instances of the many subconscious activities that find expression in action,
he writes: "None of these purposive processes may be called conative, for
they lie below, and even far below, the conscious level ; yet a super-human
spectator, who could watch our mental behavior in the same direct way as
we can observe physical events, would see them all as instances of the
same class, variant in detail but alike (as we have said) in general plan.
In other words, he would see that they all differ from purely mechanical
processes by the presence of an internal "drive," and differ from one an-
other only in the material in which the drive works and the character of
the ends towards which it is directed. To this element of drive or urge,
whether it occurs in the conscious life of man and the higher animals, or
in the unconscious activities of their bodies and the (presumably) uncon-
scious behavior of lower animals, we propose to give a single name —
horme {op fir)). In accordance with this proposal all the purposive processes
of the organism are hormic processes, conative processes being the subclass
whose members have the special mark of being conscious . . . Horme ... is
the basis of the activities that differentiate the living animal from dead
matter, and, therefore, of what we have described as the animal's charac-
teristic attitude of independence towards its world."
Accepting this admirable statement, I will add only one comment. In
my recent Modern Materialism and Emergent Evolution (21), I have
argued that we can interpret the subconscious hormic processes (which
Dr. Nunn agrees to regard as purposive or teleological ) , we can begin to
gain some understanding of them, however vague, only if we regard them
not as entirely blind but rather as involving, however dimly, something
of that foresight (however vague and short-ranging) which is of the
essence of our most clearly purposive activities; that therefore we must
regard every hormic process as of the same fundamental nature as our
mental activity, even if that interpretation involves us in a provisional
dualism, held as a working hypothesis the final verdict upon which can
come only with the progress of both the biological and the physical sciences.
REFERENCES
1. Carr, H. a. Psychology. New York: Longmans, Green, 1925. Pp. 226.
2. Drever, J. Instinct in man. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1917. Pp.
x-j-293.
3. Haldane, J. S. The sciences and philosophy. London: Hodder, 1929. Pp.
344.
4. Hartmann, E. v. Die moderne Psychologic. Leipzig: Haacke, 1901. Pp.
vii-f474.
5. Herrick, C. J. The natural history of purpose. Psychol. Rev., 1925, 32;
417-430.
■6. . Biological determinism and human freedom. Int. J. Ethics, 1926,
37, 36-52.
j 7. . Behavior and mechanism. Soc. Forces, 1928, 7, 1-11.
8. HiNGSTON, R. W. G. Problems of instinct and intelligence. London: Ar-
nold, 1928. Pp. viii+296.
36 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
9. Jennings, H. S. Diverse doctrines of evolution, their relation to the prac-
tice of science and of life. Science, 1927, 65, 19-25.
10. Klages, L. The science of character. (Trans, by W. H. Johnson.) Lon-
don: Allen & Unwin, 1929. Pp. 308.
11. LiLLlE, R. S. The nature of the vitalistic dilemma. J. Phil, 1926, 23, 673-682.
12. Lodge, O. Beyond physics. J. Phil. Stud., 1929, 4, 516-546.
13. McDoUGALL, W. An introduction to social psychology. London: Methuen,
1908. Pp. x+355.
14. . Body and mind. New York: Macmillan; London: Methuen, 1911.
Pp. xix+384.
15. . Motives in the light of recent discussion. Mind, 1920, 29, 277-293.
16. . Outline of psychology. New York: Scribner's, 1923. Pp. xvi-|-456.
17. . Outline of abnormal psychology. New York: Scribner's, 1926.
Pp. xiii + 566.
18. . Pleasure, pain and conation. Brit. J. Psychol, 1926, 17, 171-180.
19. . An experiment for the testing of the hypothesis of Lamarck. Brit.
J. Psychol, 1927, 17, 267-304.
20. . Character and the conduct of life. London: Methuen, 1927. Pp.
xiii + 287.
21. . Modern materialism and emergent evolution. New York: Van
Nostrand, 1929. Pp. viii-f249.
22. . Second report on a Lamarckian experiment. Brit. J. Psychol,
J. Phil Stud., 1930, 4, No. 17.
23. . The present chaos in psychology and the way out. J. Phil Stud.
24. Morgan, C. L. Emergent evolution. London: Williams & Norgate, 1923.
Pp. xii-f313.
25. . Life, mind, and spirit. London: Williams & Norgate, 1926. Pp.
356.
26. NuNN, P. T. Education, its data and first principles. London: Arnold,
1920. Pp. 224.
27. Prince, M. Three fundamental errors of the behaviorists and the recon-
ciliation of the purposive and mechanistic concepts. Chap. 9 in Ps3'cholo-
gies of 1925. Worcester, Mass.: Clark Univ. Press, 1926. Pp. 199-220.
28. Prinzhorn, H. Leib-seele Einheit. Potsdam: Miiller & Kripenhauer, 1927.
Pp. 201.
29. Russell, E. S. The study of living things. London: Methuen, 1924. Pp. 294.
30. Stapledon, W. O. A modern theory of ethics: a study of the relations of
ethics and psychology. London: Methuen, 1929. Pp. 278.
31. Troland, L. T. The fundamentals of human motivation. New York: Van
Nostrand, 1928. Pp. xiv+521.
32. WooDWORTH, R. S. Dynamic psychology. New York: Columbia Univ. Press,
1918. Pp. 210.
33. . Dynamic psychology. Chap. 5 in Psychologies of 1925. Worces-
ter, Mass.: Clark Univ. Press, 1926. Pp. 111-126.
34. . Psychology. (Rev. ed.) New York: Holt, 1929. Pp. 590.
PART II
"ACT" OR "INTENTIONAL" PSYCHOLOGY
AND ASSOCIATIONISM
CHAPTER 2
ASSOCIATIONISM AND "ACT" PSYCHOLOGY
A HISTORICAL RETROSPECT
G. S. Brett
University of Toronto
In the language which is at present fashionable we may say that a
cross-section of modern psychology shows a number of rudimentary organs
or "vestiges of creation" which need valuation. The task to be performed
in these paragraphs is defined by the editor as mainly historical, not wholly
archaeological but concerned with topics that are rooted in the past, have
lost their bloom and now exhibit the "sere and yellow leaf." The reader
must therefore be content to find only well-seasoned truths, devoid of
paradox and disappointingly lacking in sensational details.
II
Associationism of some kind is probably the oldest factor in psychological
theory which has persisted to the present day. It was known to Plato;
and the so-called "laws of association" were formulated precisely by
Aristotle in language that has survived with no serious variation to the
latest textbooks. At the beginning there was no conscious specialization
of theories, and consequently none of that hard bifurcation which later
schools exploited so dogmatically and so ruinously. It was natural at
first to hold together the two fundamental aspects of life, namely, form
and matter or (in the special case of psychology) act and content. The
reasons for the persistence and the alterations of emphasis in the case of
"act" and "association" are found in the equal persistence of two different
ideals of method. For one party it seems axiomatic that the most im-
portant point is the growth and activity of the mind. The very datum of
psychology is the unique kind of activity which constitutes a psychic event.
For such events there can be no real causality: the phj'siological ante-
cedents are not better known than the mental experience, and we can say
only that the bodily changes are closely correlated with the data of intro-
spection. For the other party it is equally axiomatic that nothing is
innate. The human being thinks, if at all, about what has been given in
the temporal sequences of daily life. The order of thought and the
connection of ideas is a copy of the order and connection of objective
events. Neither axiom is open to refutation, and the course of history
shows a perpetual oscillation between affirmation and negation of either
doctrine.
[39]
40 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
Another point needs to be mentioned before the individual topics can
be elaborated. This point is the significant fact that neither party has
ever been able to keep strictly inside its own boundaries. The bifurcation
has always been largely a matter of degree; and the parallel lines, when;
produced ever so far, showed a dangerous tendency to converge and con-i,
tradict their definition. A large part of the interest in the exposition'!
consists in watching the slow exhaustion of the methods, the coming of;
the inevitable crisis when neither of them can be further prolonged, and
the only possible conclusion is unity and cooperation. To abbreviate thet
subject and to give it some coherence, this central idea will be followed inr;
the treatment of the two methods.
The Aristotelians, from the days of the master to the close of thei
Middle Ages, rarely or never found any difficulty in holding both views-
of the mind. The active and the passive intellect were both needed, onet
to produce the unity and organization of thought, the other to account fort
the presence and the variations of content. The principles of associationri
originally stated were generously ambiguous. They were called similarity]
(or difference) and contiguity. That these two principles are wholly]
different was not a cause of perplexity to our forefathers. They took fori
granted the necessity of explaining both why we recall things having likeii
qualities and why we recall events which came together. They also*
found no cause for worry in the problem whether the operation was the}(
work of the mind or due to actual spatial closeness of the motions set up|
in each case. When the modern period began, with its prejudice in favor'
of mechanics as the type of scientific description, the emphasis was placed
chiefly on modes of motion. The influence of theology had been the other
way: the soul, like its Maker, "moved in a mysterious way its wonders to^
perform." The new sciences were pledged to annihilate obscurantism^
and took no account of the really miraculous powers which they were(
bestowing on the new deity called motion. So Hobbes, precise and stub-
born and pseudo-scientific, copied out the Aristotelian phrases with his own
underlining of the points. The "trayne of imaginations" was an excellent (
name for association ; it was supplemented with a promising distinction i
between free and controlled association, and a vivid example served to:
make the whole statement a classical passage. After Hobbes the next!
great contribution was furnished by Hum.e. In this case the argument
was made complete by the combination of an exact recital of the laws :
with an explicit theory of mental action. Hume included contiguity,
similarity, and the cause-effect relation under association. The critics who
have failed to see why Hume included cause and effect owe their blindness
to the fact that they fail to appreciate Hume's concept of habit. The
philosophy implied by Hume's doctrine is the theory that all connections
of content are simply the result of the corresponding order of events.
Since he proposed to account for all mental products (in spite of some
inconsistency) by the relation of events and the consequent relation of
ideas, causation was reduced from a special act or insight to the dead level
of associated impressions.
G. S. BRETT 41
It is significant that Hume was skeptical of any phj^siological basis, but
he was prepared to use metaphors and assert that the principle of asso-
ciation does for the mental world what gravitation does for the physical
world. This metaphor becomes a dogma in the hands of Hartley. As a
doctor, Hartley was more accustomed to think in terms of neural motion.
Though somewhat ambiguous and curiously attached to theological con-
clusions, Hartley was a genuine associationist. Adapting his language to
the formulae of Newtonian mechanics. Hartley provided "vibrations" as
the inner organic effects and "vibratiuncles" as the particular bearers of
conscious states. In this scheme, motion and the irradiations of motions
are really the agents in association. In spite of his own efforts to support
religion, Hartley became a prophet of materialism and was edited by
Priestley as a supporter of that doctrine.
By this time the doctrine of association had got about all the exposition
it could carry. It tended to show signs of being inadequate and, though
it remained a cardinal point in the creed of the empiricists, its wooden
simplicity was disliked and criticized. The Scottish school in the days of
Thomas Brown were loyal to the principles, but "faith unfaithful kept
them falsely true." It was not the mechanistic concept of association that
attracted BrOM^n, but the more subtle and ambiguous notion of mental
suggestion. Moreover, Brown took the matter very seriously and evolved
a distinction between primary and secondary laws of suggestion. The
primary laws are the old traditional group, but the secondary are less
familiar. They include duration, liveliness, frequency, recency, and some
others; even "diversities of state" are to be considered, such as delirium
or intoxication. Though James Mill became the accepted oracle of asso-
ciationism, he added little to the earlier descriptions, and the classical age
of associationism ended with the passage from the eighteenth century.
^ But the story was far from ended. Sir William Hamilton, replete with
historical learning and acute enough to know that the German philosophers
Jiad another line of goods, proposed to settle the old dispute by accepting
"total redintegration." In other words, anything can recall anything, pro-
vided the caller and the called have ever been united in one experience.
This was good common sense, but a rather drastic reduction of mental
life to one comprehensive formula. Hamilton was more a logician than a
psychologist, a quality which he shared with the earlier British writers.
But Alexander Bain stands out as a genuine psychologist, and his dectrine
may be considered the last whole-hearted defense of associationism. The
modernism of Bain is shown in his effort to avoid such words as memory,
and to give a complete analysis of such concepts as intellect. Intellect "is
a sort of generic term for memory, imagination, judgment, and reasoning,
piscrimination and retentiveness are the two essential functions, and of
these retentiveness is more fundamental. So, in fact, the basis of all
recognition is retentiveness, and retention is either a physiological character-
istic or an empirical psychological fact. Here association is used partly
for connected muscular movements, where one acts as a cue for another,
jand partly for connected experiences. Not satisfied with contiguity and
♦2 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
similarity, Bain introduces compound association and constructive imagina- j
tion. If it is demonstrably true that association will do all these things,
it may be necessary to admit that no other hypothesis is required ; all cog-
nition will be resolved into associations. For it should be noted that Bain
goes on to the uttermost limit. His theory of association reaches the
"creative" acts of mind; he not only accepts the problem which made
J. S. Mill furtively introduce "mental chemistry," but boldly proceeds
to subordinate it to the dogma of associationism. The account is hardly
satisfactory, but Bain asserts positively that the mind makes wholly dif-
ferent combinations out of the material as given. In other words, the
associationist has swallowed the whole crux of his doctrine with no out-
ward signs of discomfort.
The progress of associationism and its later history depend largely on
the character of Herbart's work. The rather fantastic symbolism and the
wholly unnecessary mathematical formalism of Herbart did not com-
pletely hide the value of his work. For half a century Herbart provided
the magic formulae of education. True to the British tradition, in spite
of German nationality and mentality, Herbart made the complex products
of mental activity no more than collective groups of distinct impressions.
This attitude encouraged investigation ; what can be taken apart does at
least admit some manipulation and invite analysis. But Herbart was
never completely empirical ; he was theoretically pragmatic. His influence
was strong with many later writers who believed in analysis but were not
enthusiasts in the field of experimental work. Among these the most
significant has been Professor G. F. Stout, who has inclined to emphasize
the persistent unity of consciousness and make associations instrumental
in a continuous process of "redintegration." A similar modification is seen
in James. Precluded from atomism by his doctrine of the stream of con-
sciousness, James was none the less quite sure that the mechanism of
association was inescapable. He made a significant contribution by insist-
ing that the mind associates objects, not ideas. But with this amendment
he is quite prepared to let the descendants of the Pilgrim Fathers keep
their faith in eighteenth-century beliefs. His words are so much to the point,
whether referred to 1898 or 1928, that no excuse need be offered for
quoting them.
"In the last chapter we already invoked association to account for the
effects of use in improving discrimination. In later chapters we shall see
abundant proof of the immense part which it plays in other processes, and
shall then readily admit that few principles of analysis, in any science, have
proved more fertile than this one, however vaguely formulated it often
may have been. Our own attempt to formulate it more definitely, and to
escape the usual confusion between causal agencies and relations merely
known, must not blind us to the immense services of those by whom the
confusion was unfelt. From this practical point of view it would be a
true ignoratio elenchi to flatter oneself that one has dealt a heavy blow
at the psychology of association, when one has exploded the theory of
atomistic ideas, or shown that contiguity and similarity between ideas can
G. S. BRETT +3
only be there after association is done. The whole body of the association-
ist psychology remains standing after you have translated 'ideas' into
'objects,' on the one hand and 'brain-processes' on the other; and the analy-
sis of faculties and operations is as conclusive in these terms as in those
traditionally used."
These are brave words but time has done something to tarnish their
splendor. Two aspects of the question remain to be considered. One is
the experimental treatment of associations; the other is the significance
of association for abnormal psychology. Neither of these can be regarded
as parts of the original outlook; they are the later forms of its evolution.
The experimental approach to questions of association seems to have
begun with the work of Galton. With his peculiarly original and un-
conventional attitude to accepted theories, Galton tested the traditional
views of association in two ways. In part he was concerned with an in-
vestigation of the kinds of association afforded by his own experiences,
attempting a qualitative analysis of free association. He had no theory
on which to base an explanation of the associations thus discovered, and
found the proceeding unfruitful. Then he turned to the quantitative side,
the question of the time required for associative reproduction. Incidentally
he came upon the characteristic now known as "perseveration," the tend-
ency for the same associations to repeat themselves : but this also led him
to no further general conclusions. The year of Galton's publication
(1879) is almost the birth-date of experimental psychology. Wundt was
organizing experimental research, and the problems of reaction-time were
among the first investigations undertaken by his school. The work of
Trautscholdt, testing and refining the conclusions reached by Galton, was
the first serious attempt to settle the question of reaction-time in the
matter of association. Then came the classical work of Ebbinghaus. Here
there was a definite attempt to get rid of the qualitative factors: the use
of nonsense syllables was a device intended to make the experiments con-
form to the requirement that the elements used should be exact and un-
varying. It may be doubted whether these ideal factors could be obtained,
whether variations of interest and non-voluntary forms of "meaning"
could be excluded, but at any rate we have the authority of Titchener to
support the assertion that "the recourse to nonsense syllables, as means to
the study of association, marks the most considerable advance in this
chapter of psychology, since the time of Aristotle." Moreover, Ebbinghaus
took a new view of the problem to be investigated. He did not limit
himself to the associations resulting from general experiences, but concen-
trated on the processes by which mental acts were organized into series.
In other words, he went through the acts which establish memory se-
quences and studied the characteristics of those acts. We pass over the
well-known results of this work to comment on two special points. It
is evident that the question now broadens out to become the general ques-
tion of the empirical study of memory. This involved the possibility of a
diffused effect, such that several factors in a series were being associated
in varying degrees of strength at one time. The simple connection of a
44 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930 }.
j
series {a, b, c) might be complicated in such a way that the recall of b
was in part also the recall of c, and, in fact, a second series {a, c, e) was
found to be created by the act of forming the first series. The extent of
the association was then shown to be larger than had been suspected, and
elements in the series separated by considerable intervals acquired a linkage
through the fact that the whole series had once been established. Further
tests showed that the latent effects of association were demonstrable, for
after the acquired associations seemed to have faded away, the time re-
quired to reinstate them was less than the normal time for acquiring
new material.
Continuation of this topic would involve a complete inventory of all
the researches on memory, a task which might well appall the stoutest
heart and could by no efforts be compressed into the limits of this essay.
The work of G. E. Miiller, alone and also in collaboration with Pilzecker
(1900), was one of the earliest and most weighty contributions. Cona-
plicating factors, such as interference, were introduced by some experi-
menters (e.g., Bergstrom, 1894). Significant variations were introduced
by Cattell (1887) in using variable logical relations, such as class to
member and whole to part. Other variations were the consideration of
feeling-tone and the age or sex differences of the persons studied.
It will be noted that the work so far discussed is predominantly in the
field of cognition. In spite of some restlessness and a general discontent
with the dominating tendency to make psychology a study of sensation
and thought, the association of ideas exerted its own magic of suggestion
and drew the investigators perennially back into the charmed circle of
cognitive acts. But this was not inescapable, and with the exhaustion of
the possible lines of research there came a tendency to make more prom-
inent the field of muscular or kinaesthetic sequences. The acquisition of
skill is a very obvious type of association and may be, physiologically, the
most fundamental element in all association. As facility is the term v/hich
expresses the fact underlying the observable reduction of time of recall,
so it also indicates the establishment of the successive cues which serve to
make rapid the series of movements required for skill. So far as associa-
tion is concerned, there is no difference of principle but only a shift of
reference from one group of neural connections to another. The centers
involved may be wholly or partly subcortical, but the tendency to limit
questions of association to cortical centers is a prejudice which may be
legitimately quoted as a remnant of the "intellectualism" from which we
are now so strongly urged to emancipate ourselves. Let us then give
honor to whom honor is due and not forget to mention the fact that types
of skill have been studied, notably in the case of Bryan and Harter, who
investigated the acquisition of skill in receiving and sending telegraphic
messages; or in the case of Book, whose field was typewriting. In work
of this kind the original principles of association are fundamental, except
that the emphasis on "ideas" can be partly eliminated. Also there is a
close parallel between the methods and results in this field and those of
Ebbinghaus. The increase in skill is equivalent to the increase of facility
G. S. BRETT 45
in recall, the persistence of facility during a latent period is found in
both kinds of "memory," and the unsolved problems are generically alike.
The so-called "plateau" is an ambiguous factor which may point to a
process of integration which simplifies the grouping of responses, and it is
equally possible that piecemeal learning of words tends in fact to establish
groups of responses which act by the principle of "redintegration" and
bring into play more rapidly the competent elements.
Consideration of skill and the general field of organized motor responses
leads in the direction of behaviorism. Intellectualism in psychology has
often met with rebukes and kindly remonstrances, but the treatment ac-
corded to it by behaviorists (meaning the "extreme" behaviorists) may be
called castigation. For the present we are not concerned with the quarrel
but with the doctrine which has been developed as the basis of a be-
havioristic interpretation. As we have noted, from time to time there
have frequently been attempts to justify associationism by reference to
the physiological processes supposed to sustain the psychological relations.
The empirical trend of all associationism, though not necessarily physi-
ological in its terms, does consistently make physiological explanation a
desirable goal and at least a pious aspiration. Whenever the resistance is
weakened, the temptation is triumphant. The word "contiguity" always
suggests proximity of the places where the events occur. The progressive
facility derived from established associations makes us benevolent toward
theories of neural currents and drainage and M^ords that reconstruct, pic-
turesquely, a not impossible alliance between "this too, too solid flesh"
and the elusive transactions of the mind. But the vain groping after the
required explanation, the disappointing snares of "vibrations" and "brain
paths" and other obvious metaphors, faded into oblivion when the course
of events put the conditioned reflex into the hands of the distracted seekers
after truth. Here, at last, was the long-expected solution. The reflex was
accepted already as the indisputable (though painfully abstract) unit
which by continual complication in chain reflexes and compound reflexes
could be built up into habits; and habit maketh man, in the newer schools
of thought. The difficulty which remained was to get the kind of interrela-
tion which was needed between the actual reflex mechanism and the new
stimuli provided by a changing environment. Here the conditioned re-
flex came in to supply the missing link. Accepting Pavlov's results, it
was possible to touch the bedrock of experience. Deep down in the re-
cesses of the physiological mechanism (so it seems) there were being
formed relations between stimuli and responses from which could be built
up an imposing structure that looked very much like the totality of ex-
perience. Whether this is a sound psychological doctrine or one more ex-
ercise in deductive logic may be left for the future to decide. Our
present business is to point out that it is the latest form of associationism.
Discarding the unnecessary phrase "of ideas," and broadening both thought
and language to suit the new outlook, it is correct to say that the use
of conditioned reflexes represents the most significant way in which the
central positions of associationism are active today. It may be necessary
46 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
to add that the theory has been transfigured and that nothing now re-
mains of traditional associationism, but the transfiguration has been a
gradual change of the picture in harmony with the total change of out-
look produced, no less gradually, by the evolution of the physiological and
biological sciences with which psychology has more and more allied it-
self in some directions.
As an empirical method with some degree of utility, association became a
factor in the field of abnormal psychology. This involved no special change
of theory but introduced some new aspects dependent on the character of
the cases examined. It is of some interest to recall the fact that John
Locke, pioneer of the British school and a man with medical training,
had taken it for granted that association was found only in cases where
the person was not normal. Logical connections were, of course, accepted
as rational: but Locke's discussion (Essay, Book II, Chap. 33) begins with
the heading "Something unreasonable in most men," and the idea of as-
sociation is employed to explain irrational or illogical connections de-
pendent on peculiar facts. Locke's story of the man who learned danc-
ing in a room where a trunk stood on the floor and afterwards could
never dance unless the trunk was present is as good an example of "con-
ditioning" as one could desire. Locke felt that "if this story shall be
suspected to be dressed up with some comical circumstances, a little beyond
precise nature," it would be desirable to produce evidence: but psychol-
ogists are much less tender-minded in this century. Another accepted
cause of association was "prejudice," a good old word which covered a
multitude of sins. In this respect it has its counterpart in the words
"sentiment" (as used by Mr. Shand) and "complex." Locke says:
"There are rooms convenient enough, that some men cannot study in,
and fashions of vessels, which, though ever so clean and commodious,
they cannot drink out of, and that by reason of some accidental ideas
which are annexed to them, and make them offensive : and who is there
that hath not observed some man to flag at the appearance, or in the
company of some certain person not otherwise superior to him, but
because, having once on some occasion got the ascendant, the idea of
authority and distance goes along with that of the person, and he that
has been thus subjected, is not able to separate them?" This seems as
much as one need say about complexes, and the last sentence even suggests
the exact notion of an "inferiority complex."
But Locke, in common with the men of his day, was content to ob-
serve and describe. The new element in modern "association tests" is
the reversion of the process and the development of a technique to dis-
cover which contents of the mind have significant bonds of union. The
so-called diagnostic value was thus added, and it proved to have signi-
ficance, to a limited extent, partly in defining types of mind and partly in
detecting special states of mind, such as the guilty conscience. Whether the
latter affords good legal evidence or not is irrelevant to the present dis-
cussion ; the only point at issue is that some kind of connection, indicated
by inhibition, variation of reaction-time, or peculiar forms of association
G. S. BRETT 47
(e.g., water, death), can be discovered by this use of tests. Kraepelin
seems to have begun this sort of work in 1883 as a part of the diagnosis
of mental diseases, and since that date many investigators have used it in
different ways. The tests seem to show a working correlation between
degrees of mental activity and range of association, a result which ap-
pears to be less a discovery than a proof of a definition. Many interest-
ing details have emerged which throw light on the way in which ideas
may be subordinated or superordinated ; but general conclusions about such
entities as the "criminal mind" will remain precarious until we know
more exactly the difference between a criminal and a victim of unwise
legislation ! The method as such does not stand or fall by the truth of
such conclusions, and its judicious use in the way which is now chiefly
attributed to Jung may be described in the words of Bernard Hart as "of
great service in the preliminary investigation of a case" and able to
furnish "valuable indications of the directions along which a subsequent
detailed analysis may most profitably be conducted,"
The reader may feel that he has now been led away from what he
has been accustomed to regard as the distinctive teaching of associationism.
The suspicion is justified, but it is necessary to offer the defense that the
result is not an act of deception but the inevitable effect of launching
out on the stream of history and following the current as it flows. When
associationism takes on the forms describable by such words as sentiments
and complexes, it becomes doubtful whether it has not changed its fund-
amental postulates and become merely an instrument in the hands of men
whose creed has very little resemblance to the articles of faith accepted
by their predecessors. To speak plainly, the later history of association-
ism reveals a change of front which makes the older antagonism between
content and act almost obsolete. We may now turn the coin over and
look at the reverse to discover what characters have been stamped on it.
Ill
Though associationism came into prominence by the impetus derived
from experimental science, the opponents were never entirely eclipsed.
The deep-seated belief that quantity is not applicable to "the soul" re-
mained unshaken, and the "pure act" of the mind was, in reality, more
vigorously supported than the new views about its composition and de-
composition. Leibniz uttered the challenge of his school in the most em-
phatic language : the mind is innate to itself and it is more concerned with
expression than impression. Though useful in many ways, associationism
had a tendency to run to seed and end in such artificial contrivances as
the "statue" of Condillac. The pietist, the mystic, and the mathema-
tician never agreed with the exponents of mechanism; for different
reasons they all clung to some formula of insight, spontaneous activity,
or creative power. When the British method of empirical analysis was
spreading through Germany and the country was being nourished on
translations of Locke and Hume, the movement was checked by the im-
pact of Kant's critical doctrine. The persistent and unfailing influence of
48 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
Kant down to the present day is not due to peculiar phrases like the
"synthetic unity of apperception" nor to any very effective program of
work. It is due to the fact that he actually achieved what he claimed
to have done: he made materialism and spiritualism equally impossible.
The new basis was experience, the raw material of life with no antecedent
divisions between soul and body which could justify the necessity to
choose one or the other as an exclusive principle of explanation. From
this point of view the "given" is the elementary act, the simplest form of
self-expression, the "act" as understood by Fichte and interpreted by his
many disciples down to and including Miinsterberg. It is probably
foolish to suppose that national characteristics play any part in the history
of theories, though psychologists might be expected to favor psychological
explanations of these phenomena. It is also foolish to speak of a French
or German or English psychology, when exceptions are as numerous as
examples. But in spite of all these warnings, it is difficult not to en-
visage the long warfare of psychological theories as a struggle between
Anglo-Saxon and Teutonic attitudes, with the French to mediate be-
tween them at intervals. If something is needed to point the moral,
let the reader consider the relation between the main part of Gardner
Murphy's Historical Introduction to Modern Psychology and Kliiver's
Supplement on Contemporary German Psychology. Whatever the reason
may be, Kant has remained the monument that casts its shadow on the whole
nineteenth century, and his doctrine was activism. After Kant we come
to Lotze, Johannes Miiller, and Fechner, all in their diverse ways true
to the fundamental tenets; even Herbart was no exception, though he
might be claimed as a product of cross-fertilization. If modern psychol-
ogy really begins with Wundt, we are straightway confronted
by his use of the traditional German doctrine of apperception and his
obvious desire to transform all associations into synthetic acts (fusions, as-
similations, complications), supplemented by equally active forms of
analysis. Incidently Wundt showed that this attitude of mind neither
cramps nor excludes a zeal for experimental investigation.
For the historian there is hardly any figure in modern psychology more
interesting than Brentano. Appearing in 1874 his work was curiously
paradoxical. Its title, Psychologie vom empirischen Standpunkte, was in
itself a challenge, for it ignored the monopoly which the word empirical
had already established as a name for sense empiricism, went straight
back to the Greek use of the term and (with explicit revival of an
Aristotelian tradition) asserted the fundamental importance of activity.
Brentano's book might almost be counted a Roman Catholic manifesto if it
were not true that what is important in the doctrines of that church has
always been equally the possession of pre-Christian and post-Christian
Aristotelians. At the same time, in spite of its appearance of being re-
actionarj;-, Brentano's work really fell in line with the movement from
Leibniz through Kant; it was "empirical" in the sense that it was based
on the claim that it reached a pure experience and analyzed it. The
keyword is activity and the genuine material for psychology is the act.
G. S. BRETT 49
To expand this further it is necessary to understand that the unit of ac-
tivity (which is also the actual unit of psychology) is some degree of
judgment, not a sensation. This point is really the core of the whole
matter, though it is usually tiifficult to make it intelligible, and almost
impossible when the tendency toward physiology is dominant. To make
sensation the beginning of psychic activity would be absurd to a psy-
chologist of Brentano's type; it would be like telling the anthropologist
that in the beginning was the grammar, not speech. And this postulate
of method, though it might shock the followers of Hume or even some of
the less critical disciples of Wundt, really forced psychologists to re-
consider their position. Wundt was philosophically a Kantian, and, as
such, a supporter of activity. But the methods emphasized by his ex-
perimental program were the methods of Miiller, the physiologist, and
Helmholtz, the physicist. As such, they carried in them the seeds of
dissension. Wundt himself might hold together the opposing tendencies,
for it is not certain that a belief in activity either can or does vitally
affect the kind of problem which is solved in the laboratory. But it was
equally inevitable that some disciples, either less interested in the phj^sio-
logical approach or feeling that it was for the moment exhausted and
lacking promise, should turn to new fields and attempt to find new
material. This was the situation which produced the so-called Wiirz-
burg school, a legitimate development of part of the Wundtian pro-
gram which need not have caused any hostility between Leipzig and
Wiirzburg if it had been handled diplomatically or submitted to arbi-
tration. As it was, the difference was more emphasized than the agree-
ment, and the movement became the first stage in the quarrel between
the structural and the functional attitudes in psychology. The difference
of formulae was further complicated by the shift of emphasis from sen-
sation to thought. What Titchener called "the experimental psychology
of the thought processes" was a phenomenon with a double significance.
In part it challenged the adequacy of existing methods to solve problems
above the level of sensation and motor responses; in part it raised the
question whether the accepted "elements" were functions of the organism
at all, or merely artificial factors useful for making a mechanical pic-
ture of the mind. The first point could be settled only by more ex-
periments, and to these the supporters of Kiilpe particularly applied them-
selves. The second point was much more significant and was destined to
involve the whole field of psychological theory.
In some respects it might be said that the chief object of the new move-
ment was to escape from the situation which made the "glue of as-
sociation" either necessary or useful. One way of doing this was shown
by Mxinsterberg. The first requisite was to abandon the kind of unit
which had been assumed by previous theorists, the atomic sensation.
Miinsterberg (who, like most Germans, had definite philosophical lean-
ings and was influenced by Fichte) formulated his concept of the unit
in terms of action. The primary psychological act was, therefore, found
neither in the sensation as datum nor in the action as response but in the
50 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
transition itself, the sensorimotor process. The indivisible mental act
was then equivalent to the change of mental content, while at the same
time the act retained a psychophysical value because it was (or should
have been) equivalent to a measurable reaction-time. With this aspect
of the subject (the experimental records) we are not concerned in
detail. The point of interest is that Miinsterberg's approach led him
to experiment with a stimulus-response method which took the form of
question and answer, thereby introducing the problems of selection, judg-
ment, and decision. How much was proved by the experiments is not
easy to say, but it may be inferred that they indicated a difference be-
tween simple habits of motor reaction (acquired by previous train-
ing) and the selective activity required for complex judgments of new
material. From the way in which the experiments were graded, it
would be possible to infer that all conscious reactions are dependent on
apperception of meaning and vary in rapidity according to the degree
to which the motor path is open : in other words, the signal operates most
rapidly when the movement is expected and anticipated. On the higher
planes of judgment this occurs when the elements have a kind of re-
lation under which they can be easily subsumed. For example, right-
left is a relation of this kind; but the question (used by Miinsterberg),
"Which is of greater importance to man, the most important application
of electricity or the most important use of gunpowder," might well cause
the most nimble intellect some considerable delay!
Miinsterberg's work really created more problems than it solved; and
this may be called one of its chief merits. The method seems to have
"summoned from the vasty deep" more spirits than it could control, and
the most obvious conclusion would be that it is possible to evoke mental
acts which defy any kind of measurement or explanation. At any rate
the numerical values seem to have become meaningless at this stage,
and it became apparent that neither association nor Wundt's formula
of apperception was the required solution.
The conspicuous part played by the motor reaction in Miinsterberg's
experiments has rather obscured other implications of his work. For
this reason emphasis has here been laid on a different point, namely,
the kind of summation which his question-answer material involves.
Somewhere in Miinsterberg's results there were concealed two factors:
one was the actual kind of synthesis which held together question and
answer; the other was the individual differences of the persons em-
ployed for the experiments. Either of these factors was enough to de-
stroy the mechanical conception of association, and in fact Miinsterberg
never seems to have doubted that he was tapping some kind of synthetic
process of judgment. For this reason he comes very close to another
group of psychologists who never attempted to embellish their procedure
with any physiological ornaments. Among these must be reckoned James
Ward, a powerful influence in the movement which was to carry British
psychology far away from the simple-minded associationism in which it had
so long found peace and happiness. Ward was not so insular as his pre-
G. S. BRETT 51
decessors. Berlin, Gottingen, and Leipzig all contributed to the com-
position of his mind, and the most decisive influence was Lotze. It
was the idealistic rather than the physiological trend in Lotze which
appealed to Ward, who was himself struggling to reconcile his out-
worn creed with the new science of his day. The result was a kind
of spiritual biology which was new enough to seem revolutionary and
old enough to leave undisturbed the bedrock of tradition. Ward's
achievement was impressive. With great diligence and extraordinary
grasp of his material, he succeeded in translating the facts of mental life
into a language which was free from the metaphors of Nevi^onian me-
chanics and flavored with suggestions of the new biological interests.
Life and activity and the self as subject were the categories of his psy-
chology. The whole attitude of associationism faded away as the new
ideas spread through England, and the isolated figure of Ward at Cam-
bridge became an unsuspected ally of the German idealism which Green
and Bradley and Bosanquet were making triumphant at Oxford. At
least they had in common an opposition to associationism and a more or
less complete tendency to pay no attention to experimental laboratories and
their output.
As space will not permit us to deal extensively with these different
writers, Ward will be taken for granted as the background of the work
of G. F. Stout. More than anyone else Stout has been a faithful dis-
ciple of Ward, not as a slavish imitator of the words but as an in-
dependent thinker capable of carrying on the work in the spirit of the
master. Times have changed since Ward first wrote his famous article
for the Encyclopaedia Britannica and with the times there have come
changes in the restatement of psychological doctrine by Ward's followers.
But, on the whole, the pattern has been well preserved. The one un-
changing point of agreement is the emphasis on activity. From Brentano
onwards we find among these writers the ruling principle that in psy-
chology it is possible to classify activities, but it is not possible to dis-
cover inert fragments. They all learned very thoroughly the lesson taught
by Lotze, that the mind is not like a wall composed of ready-made bricks
but is like the plant, built up of cells that are made as the plant makes it-
self. There could be no reconciliation between this doctrine and the
associationists ; in fact, none was needed; for no champion came forward
to carry the banner of Hume and James Mill and Bain. Only the
"neural shock" of Herbert Spencer was left to remind his countrymen
of their lost leaders! The new school took activity as their keyword.
It was indisputably true that the word had no very exact meaning; as
Bradley said, it was liable to become a public scandal. But Stout at
least gave it a meaning by force of the use made of it, and with that we
may be content. Its first meaning can be taken from the physiologists,
from the primary irritability which all living matter must possess. It can
then be elevated to the Spinozistic level, and we may assume that every
creature strives to persist in its own existence. This, as the Latinists had
been saying from the time of Cicero, is conation. With this basic term
52 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
to support the structure, we may go on to consider classes of activity^
which are knowing, feeling, and willing. These are all conative in their
way, but we must guard against thinking about the wrong things; the
object at which we strive is always the next state of mind: if I want to
turn out the light, my real aim is the experience of darkness which I thus
establish. Mental life is a continuity, without break or division; like
time itself, it flows without interruption. By the same argument it can
be shown that it flows over from one focal center to another: "in the
moment of interruption, the interruption itself constitutes a sort of cona-
tive continuity between the old process and the new." With such fluent
material it is clear that no method is possible except analysis: our author
provides us with an "analytic psychology" which is essentially observa-
tional and introspective, or, as Mr. Broad would prefer to say, "in-
spective."
The center of interest is once more the problem of mental connections.
In a sense there is nothing but connection, because we have unbroken
continuity and inescapable relativity. But these universals are not quite
to the point; we still want a closer treatment of the particular experiences.
Here we come to two problems. Are we to go back to the old hard-and-
fast distinction of images and ideas? Are we to fall back on associations?
The answer is provided by the well-established practice of transforming
values. Images are not denied, but they are not the isolated mental frag-
ments which rejoiced the atomistic psychologists of earlier days. They are
subordinate instruments; they subserve meaning without making up its
essence; they "are attended to only so far and so long as they connect
themselves with the general direction of mental activity" ; they are often
only loosely connected with the recognized content of meaning, as when
the idea of liberty is accompanied by the fleeting image of the Statue of
Liberty; finally, there are some apprehended contents which are not
"imaged" at all, the "imageless thoughts" of the later controversy. If we
want to hear more about images, we must wander away into illusions,
hallucinations, and dreams.
When we come to the question of "trains of ideas" the strategy is very
similar but more subtle. Association of ideas is accepted as a formula
with some utility; it plays a subordinate part in the process by which one
experience leads into another and thereby forms the basis for possible
reproduction of mental states. But the conditions of reproduction are so
formulated as to remove any suspicion that the doctrine of associationism
is retained. We are told that "ultimately all depends on continuity of
interest," and "contiguity" is actually translated into "continuity of in-
terest." The space or time relations of mental events are now discarded ;
the link is between meanings which owe all the connection they have to
the interest which sustains them. The problem of selective attention
ceases to trouble us, for all attention is selective, and there is no associa-
tion which is not selective. The exceptions would be pathological. Our
terms are now changed to suit the new point of view : there are "dominant
interests" and "dominant ideas" which function as organizing agents in
G. S. BRETT S3
the total experiences and, like a magnet in a field of electricity, each cen-
tral idea holds together all that comes within its range of influence. In
so far as ideas can be called "parts" of anything, it is held that there must
be some "whole" of which they are parts; and the whole is prior to the
parts, because otherwise there could never be more than aggregates or
bundles. It is the "total mental state" that really counts in "determining
what ideas shall be revived," and by this concept of a total mental state
the standpoint is adequately defined.
Stout's point of view is part of a movement which appears in other
writers with more or less significant variations. The theory of dominant
interests which act as regulative agencies is closely related to the hormic
doctrine of P. T. Nunn and the purposive psychology of McDougall.
In a special field it has served to support the theory of sentiments used by
A. F. Shand to explain the organic relatedness of emotions, and in prin-
ciple it is not far removed from "complexes," if we limit that term to
normal apperceptive processes. But the peaceful penetration achieved by
the theory has been masked by the more striking tactics of the German
school. When we quoted the phrase "total mental state" from Stout's
work, we might have paused to inquire what is included by that set of
terms. When is a mental state "total" ? Is the reference to the cognitive
states only or to complex units of knowing, willing, and feeling? Stout
would presumably accept any dominant state: when he speaks of a man
being "in the mood for making puns," he introduces a word (mood)
which calls for more explanation ; but on the whole he seems indifferent
to the further possibilities of the problem. But it was exactly these possi-
bilities which stimulated the Wiirzburg school to make their experimental
researches on the thought processes. The details of these are so far
familiar that it would be a waste of energy to recount them. We may
limit ourselves to a statement of the theoretical significance of what M^as
supposed to be proved.
The first and most comprehensive result was the declaration that all
piecemeal "composition of the mind" was a radically unsound view. In
the beginning is the act, the undefinable "thinking" itself. But this is not
a "pure" act. It is itself the emergence into conceptual form of a tend-
ency, disposition, or attitude. Though emphasis was put on the rejection
of images, because that happened to be the precise point in dispute, the
real significance of the whole theory was its attempt to grasp once more
the concrete flow of life, to observe the flux of thought without arresting
it or enclosing it in artificial compartments. The group that acquired
fame during this controversy (Ach, Biihler, Messer, Watt, et al.)
was never exactly a school ; they were a band of workers united by the
common hope of finding a way out of the intolerable position created by
traditional formulae and unverified dogmas. The results were as various
as the workers and tended to be more destructive than constructive. The
truth of the position is probably indisputable. Every thought is a ripple
in the deep waters of life: the past and the future, the height and the
depth, are all summed up in it; as a movement it must have direction as
well as speed; as an event it must have relations, and, when it is thought^
54 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
it will probably have logical or systematic relations. These claims need
not be disputed, but the opponent will ask what it all means. Science
cannot study the universe; it must abstract and isolate and make artificial
in order to attain precision. It must assume points that have no magni-
tude, motion that involves no friction, cells that might exist alone in no
continuous tissue. We know these things are fictions, but they are the
price that is paid for the kind of results we want. If we insist on atti-
tudes, dispositions, tendencies, "intention," and the like, can we go on
with the psychology of the psychologists? The plain answer is no. This
road leads to another goal and that is the study of persons in the totality
of their existence. Not merely the whole mind but the whole personality
will have to be the starting-point of the new science.
Some have already accepted this and declared for personal psychology.
A few continue in the more theoretical ground of a self psychology, deter-
mined not to accept Hume and his ways at any price. The German school
has been challenged to establish its priority by the "Paris school," in other
words, by Binet. As a consequence of other researches, Binet came to
the conclusion that it was futile to probe the secrets of thought by the
study of images. He, too, found refuge in imageless thoughts and in the
"intention" of the mind. When we say "triangle" we know what we
mean ; the word "triangle" signifies the intention, the direction, the sphere
of consciousness. We can say, "At any rate that is not a triangle," while
admitting that we do not know what the datum is. We reject with un-
sophisticated scorn the assertion that if we say "triangle" we must mean
either the scalene, or the equilateral, or the isosceles; the nominalism of
Berkeley is as dead as his theistic metaphysics for most psychologists. Even
Bain had his moments of weakness (or strength?) and spoke of "attitudes."
In fact, if we go on probing much longer, we may find that no serious
psychologist ever really denied either a self or a mind or a state of con-
sciousness; all the sceptics really meant to say was that these things are
true without being useful, and though we can always have them we can
rarely or never use them. That is perhaps the root of the trouble and it
means the parting of the ways. One way will lead to a psychology which
is scientific but artificial ; the other will lead to a psychology which is
natural but cannot be scientific, remaining to the end an art.
We shall perhaps be trespassing on forbidden ground if we take into
account another contribution, the writings of Bergson. Whether Bergson
would venture to join a company of "real psychologists" or prefer peace
with honor among the philosophers, may be left undecided. The Traite
de Psychologic of Dumas accords him a distinct place, and takes him to be
the spokesman of the method called "intuition." Certainly he enters the
procession with good right after Maine de Biran, Charcot, Janet, and
Binet. From their work he has drawn the conclusions, only exciting
because they upset ingrained habits, that we live before we study life,
think before we analyze thoughts, and, in general, act before we reflect.
That is old enough to need no comment, except that nothing would be
more discussed than a man who rose from the dead. The eighteenth cen-
tury buried the living man; children it ignored altogether, until Tiede-
G. S. BRETT 55
mann remembered them; and the result was that it forgot what spon-
taneity and immediacy could mean. Bergson advanced by going back; he
went back behind mechanism to the living man, and behind reflective
man to the creature that lived indivisibly before anyone undertook the
"anatomy of the mind." Bergson's work, in effect, was a commentary on
the brief but despairing phrase, "We murder to dissect." In reply it
might be said that we have progressed far enough now to dissect before
we kill (such is the ambiguous nature of progress), and in any case dis-
section is quite useful even if the object is dead. We come back to the
original point, which is: Do these attacks on traditional associationism
really imply that all psychology is open to condemnation, that mental life
cannot really be reduced to the kind of formulae which science requires,
that the variables are too many and too diverse for the human mind to
control? If so, the future lies with literary descriptions, with art, edu-
cation, characterology, individual differences, and all the other profitable
enterprises which can perhaps be reconciled with any theoretical position,
provided it is not associationism or pure structuralism.
Driesch has said that "association psychology is really dead now," and
the statement expresses something between a fact and a hope. To justify
it would require a discussion of topics excluded from this article, particu-
larly the problems of relations and the evidence for the Gestalt doctrine.
Having no commission to discuss those extensive topics, we may conclude
with a brief summary of the older teaching as defined for the purpose of
this section. The disruption which separated behaviorists from intro-
spectionists is a recent event which can now be traced back to the minor
breach between those who chose to consider first the empirical content and
those who preferred to take their stand on the indivisible act. The evolu-
tion which has been sketched here seemed to be most successfully formu-
lated in the terms of that antithesis, which corresponded for practical
purposes with the division between empirical and rational psychology.
Through various mutations the conflict of interest went its way. The
final balance of advantage has seemed to lie with the opponents of em-
piricism and associationism. The outcome, however, is not simple. The
abandonment of faculties for types of activity is one item of progress, but
it may prove to be more a change of name than of facts. The correspond-
ing movement from structure to function seems to support the preference
for action and totality over content and composition. But on examination
the practical value of the associationist principles seems to be very slightly
damaged or reduced. A newer and wider significance may accrue to the
old terminology from advances in physiology or biology or even sociology;
the concept of growth, in particular, may have rendered us dissatisfied
with anything that seems rigid and fixed and not perpetually "in the
making" ; but in the detailed consideration of this and that particular
habit, in the positive connections established between one event and an-
other, in the more subtle but not otherwise different concept of condition-
ing which we now use for association, there seem to survive so many
earlier conceptions that we may hesitate to say too confidently that the
older points of view have lost all their vitality.
PART III
FUNCTIONAL PSYCHOLOGY
CHAPTER 3
FtJNCTIONALISM
Harvey Carr
University of Chicago
What is a functional type of psychology, and who were the functional
psychologists ?
According to Boring (4), functionalism was a revolt of colonial psy-
chologists against Germany. (Perhaps American would have been the
better term to use.) The controversy between Titchener and Baldwin
was a phase of the whole. Germany was the more philosophical and
America the more practical. Chicago functionalism was the explicit
movement, but I think it was symptomatic of what was quietly going
on all over the country except at Cornell.
Titchener (11, 12) groups the various psychologies into two classes:
{a) the structural or what is now termed the existential type of psy-
chology represented by Wundt, Kiilpe, Ebbinghaus, and Titchener, and
{b) the empirical type which attempts to portray mind as it is, i.e., as
it works in dealing with the world about it. This empirical type of
psychology goes back to Aristotle and Aquinas, and it forms
the staple contents of most psychologies down to and including our
twentieth-century textbooks.
Titchener further subdivides the empirical group into two sub-classes
— ^the act and the functional types of psychology. Brentano, Lipps, Wi-
tasek, Stumpf, Meinong, Messer, and Stout are referred to as act psy-
chologists, while Ladd, Judd, Angell, James, Baldwin, and Dewey are
referred to as functionalists. Titchener states that functionalism was
primarily an American psychology, which traces its descent from Aristotle,
but which was born of the enthusiasm of the post-Darwinian days when
evolution seemed to answer all the riddles of the universe. Functionalism
is further described as the dominant psychology of America which sud-
denly became conscious of itself, and which attempted to justify itself as
a system with the introduction of existentialism.
According to Angell (2), functionalism was a movement that em-
braced a large number of psychologists who had certain principles in
common, but who differed considerably in many other respects. He
specifically states that functionalism is not to be identified with the
Chicago type of psychology. Functionalism found its roots in Aristotle,*'
its modern origin is traced to Spencer and Darwin, while the movement!
became self-conscious and first attempted to define and formulate itself
as a protest and defense against the inroads and threatened dominance of
[59]
60 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
the existentialism of Titchener and his disciples. Angell gives no list of
functional psychologists as does Titchener.
These three writers agree that functionalism refers primarily to the
dominant modern American type of psychology as contrasted with the
structuralism or existentialism of Wundt and Titchener. I doubt if An-
gell would limit the term exclusively to American psychologists. I am i
inclined to think that he would classify Stout, for example, as a func'j
tionalist, while Titchener refers to him as an act psychologist. Perhapa|
the distinction between a functional and an act psychology is not as clear-
cut and definite as Titchener assumes, or perhaps the two psychologies are
not mutually exclusive and the same person may legitimately be assigned
to both classes.
These minor differences will be ignored, and, for the present, we shall
use the term functionalism to refer to the American empirical move-
ment that rebelled against the proposed limitations of the structural or ex-
istential school of Titchener and his disciples. I shall adopt the caution '
of Angell and refrain from adding to Titchener's list of functional p^-
chologists, as I fear that some might be rudely surprised, if not insulted, ,
at being labelled a functionalist. Functional psychology is not to be '
identified with that of Angell or the Chicago group of psychologists. There
/ is no functional psychology; rather there are many functional psychologies.
/ In speaking of functionalism, we are dealing with a group of psychologies
I which differ from each other in many particulars, but which exhibit cer-
Y tain common characteristics in virtue of which they are labelled func-
^ tionalistic.
I What are these common characteristics, and in what respects do the
functional psychologies differ from the existentialism of Titchener? In
answering these questions, we shall again refer to the writings of Titchener
and Angell- — the chief antagonists in this structural-functional contro-
versy.
Before doing so, it may be well to note some points of agreement. At
the time of which we write — roughly the period from 1890 to 1910 — prac-
tically all psychologists professed to be engaged in the study of con-
sciousness. Structuralists and functionalists were alike then in that they
defined their science as the study of the conscious processes as distinct
from their organic conditions and correlates. The two schools differed
somewhat as to the meaning of the term consciousness, and they might
differ considerably as to the metaphysical implications of the dualistic
distinction involved. Again, introspection was regarded as the chief, if
not the only, method of psychological observation, although the two schools
did not agree as to the connotation of this term.
Functionalism, according to. Angell (2), differs from structuralism in
^three respects.
f 1 ) Structuralism deals with the whats or contents of consciousness,
I . and it attempts to describe these in terms of their analytical elements.
I Functionalism does the same thing, but it refuses to confine itself to this
I limited program. It proposes to deal also with the whys and hows of
HARVEY CARR 61
these contents, and to study them in their relation to the context of which
^ey are a part.
r 2) J This context in its widest and most inclusive sense is the biological
^TmJcess of adjustment. Functionalism regards mental processes as means
by which the organism adapts itself to its environment so as to satisfy
its biological needs. Mental events are thus studied from the stand-
point of their relation to the environmental world and to the ensuing re-
action of the organism to that world. Functional psychology is thus
practical and utilitarian in spirit and interest. Functionalism studies the
uses and utilities of conscious processes, and it is naturally interested in
developing the various applied fields — educational psychology, industrial
ychology, abnormal psychology, mental hygiene, etc.
3) Functional psychology insistently attempts to translate mental
^ess into physiological process and, conversely, it is interested in dis-
covering and stating the organic concomitants and correlates of the con-
scious processes. Such a program is obviously incumbent upon any dualis-
tic psychology which regards mental processes as means of adjustment to
the environmental world. A functionalist can accept any one of the
various conceptions of nature of the mind-body dualism with the
single exception of that of epiphenomenalism.
Titchener (11) lists four characteristics of a functional type of psy-
chology.
1) Functional psychologies distinguish between the activity or func-
tion of consciousness and its content or structure. They emphasize the
study of function in preference to that of content.
2) Consciousness, especially in its active phase, has a value for or-
ganic survival. Consciousness is regarded as a solver of problems.
3 ) A functional psychology is teleological. The whole course of
mental life is regarded teleologically.
4) Functional psychologies are written as a preface to philosophy or
to some practical discipline. They psychologize as a means to some
foreign end and not as an end per se. Their spirit is primarily that of
an applied science rather than that of a pure science. Presumably existen-
tialism is a representative of the pure scientific attitude.
These two writers agree that functionalism differs from existentialism
in that it refuses to confine itself to the limitations of the existential
program, but insists upon doing something more, viz., study functions.
Both agree that this program will include a study of the uses or utilities
of mind in practical situations, and of its biological or survival value.
The reader is left in some doubt as to the extent of agreement in other
details, and one still feels the need for a more precise and comprehensive
definition of the term function.
Ruckmick (6) canvassed fifteen modern American and English texts,
and carefully studied the meaning of the term function whenever used.
He found that all usages of the word could be grouped in two classes,
and that the same author might use the term in both senses.
1 ) In the first usage the term function is equivalent to mental ac-
62 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
tivity. All mental activities such as seeing, hearing, perceiving, con-
ceiving, imagining, recalling, etc., are termed functions. Mental func-
tions and mental acts are thus synonomous expressions.
2) The term function was also employed to denote service or use for
some end, as when an author speaks of the function of a word when it is
used as a symbol for an object.
Psychology, according to Titchener, borrowed the term from physiology,
and psychologists use it, in my opinion, in the same way. Physiologists
refer to breathing as a function, and they also speak of its function or use'
in furnishing oxygen to the blood and in the elimination of waste prod-
ucts. There is nothing peculiar in the psychological use of the term.
Critics of functionalism have frequently commented on this dual usage
of the term. They point out that with such a dual usage it is possible
to speak of the "function of a function," or to say that a "function has a
function." These writers apparently attempt to discredit the functional-
istic movement by suggestive innuendo. Their remarks seem to suggest
that such phrases are ridiculous, illogical, or absurd, and that the term
function is evidently being used in two inconsistent ways. At least this
has been my interpretation of their comments.
Without being contumacious in the matter, the writer is willing to
defend the three following propositions:
1 ) The two usages mentioned by Ruckmick are not inconsistent.
2) They do not, in fact, represent two different meanings. The
term function is used in exactly the same sense in both cases.
3) Finally, it is neither illogical nor absurd to speak of the function
of a function.
With both usages mentioned by Ruckmick, the term function, in my
opinion, is used in the same way as it is in mathematics. When a math-
ematician says that X is a function of Y, he is asserting that the term X
stands in a contingent relation to Y without specifying as to the further
nature of that relation. Psychologists, in my opinion, use the term func-
tion whenever they are dealing with a contingent relation irrespective of
whether that relation is also one of act and structure, cause and effect, or
means and end. A contingent relation and a functional relation are
synonomous expressions.
The statement that the oxygenation of the blood is a function of
breathing merely asserts that this end result is contingent upon the act
of breathing. Likewise, when psychologists state that one of the functions of
a vocal process is that of symbolizing objects, they are merely stating that
the object of thought in this particular case is contingent upon the vocal
process. Again the statements that breathing is a function of the lungs
and that seeing is a function of the eyes obviously mean that these acts
as acts are each contingent upon those respective structures.
Both physiologists and psychologists frequently refer to activities like
breathing and seeing as functions without specifying the structures with
which they are correlated even when they are known. In other words,
they refer to these activities as functions without stating what they are
I
HARVEY CARR 63
functions of. The nature of the correlated term — some structure in this
case — is implied or taken for granted.
Psychologists also refer to various mental acts as functions when their
organic correlates are somewhat hypothetical, or inadequately known.
Reasoning, conceiving, feeling, and willing are cases in point. In labeling
these activities functions, psychologists are asserting that these acts are
not disembodied activities, but that each is contingent upon some distinc-
tive set of organic conditions even though the exact nature of these may
be largely unknown.
Whenever mental acts are referred to as functions, the term is in-
variably used, in my opinion, to indicate that these acts are not disem-
bodied acts but are acts of an organism and that each is contingent upon
some distinctive organic factor. Sometimes this organic correlate is
specifically stated at the time, sometimes it is not stated though known, and
often it is not stated because its nature is inadequately known.
In dealing with contingent or functional relations, we may define
either term on the basis of its relation to the other. For example, one
function of a vocal act is that of representing an object, or we may say
that the representation of an object is a function of the vocal activity.
One of the functions of breathing is that of the oxygenation of the blood,
and this latter may also be characterized as a function of breathing.
We may also note that a series of phenomena may be contingently
related to each other as when ^ is a function of B, and 5 is a function C,
and so on. To keep to our stock example, we may state that the oxygen-
ation of the blood is a function of breathing which is itself a function of
the lungs. In this case it is perfectly legitimate to speak of the function of
a function, or to say that the function of breathing has a function, viz.,
the oxygenation of the blood.
Contingent or functional relations frequently exhibit a considerable
degree of complexity. A given term may be contingent upon or a func-
tion of a number of factors. For example, the color of a negative after-
image may at the same time be a function of the color and intensity of the
stimulating object, the duration of exposure, the part of the retina af-
fected, and the color of the background upon which the after-image is
projected. Breathing may be said to subserve two functions — the oxygen-
ation of the blood, and the elimination of carbon dioxide. Laryngeal ac-
tivities may likewise be used as a means of communication or as a device
for thinking.
Contingent or functional relations constitute a general class that is
capable of further specification or particularization. As already noted,
functional relations include the relation of activity to structure, and that
of use or means to end. It also includes the relation of stimulus and
response, cause and effect, the relation between two correlates that are
both effects of a common cause, and the relation of present experience to
the past experience of the subject. I am not concerned here with the
problem of logical classification, but I merely wish to give the reader
some sort of a preliminary notion of the wide variety of specific sorts of
relation with which a functional psychology is concerned.
64 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
With this conception of the term function, we may now return to the]i
distinction between the programs of an existential psychology and a psy-''
chology of function, and we shall contrast them on the basis of theirl
treatment of a specific behavior situation.
I leave my laboratory to go home to lunch, come out of the building
and encounter a cold and drizzly rain, spy on the other side of the street
the parked automobile of a friend with whose habits I am acquainted, wait
until he appears, and secure a ride home.
As we have noted, both an existential psychology and the functional
psychologies of the period under consideration are couched in dualistic
terms and will deal with the above situation in terms of the subject's ex-
perience with it.
In this experiential situation it is possible to distinguish between (a) the
fact of awareness, (b) the various sensory contents, i.e., the sensory attri-
butes of the objective situation, of the organism, and of the actions of
the organism to that situation, (c) the various meanings of these con-
tents, and (d) their intrinsic and extrinsic relations. For the sake
of simplicity we shall ignore the possible presence of affective and imaginal
contents and confine our treatment to the sensory aspects of the experience.
The program of existentialism may be stated as follows:
1) It proposes to limit itself to the study of these contents as bare
existences, i.e., as abstracted from the fact of awareness, from their
values and meanings, and from their functional relations.
2) Its problem is that of the description of these contents.
3) It assumes that these contents are to be described only in terms of
their constituent elemental contents. It follows then that the existential
psychologist first attempts to analyze the various contents into their
elements, and these elements, be it noted, are themselves contents. With
the descriptive technique thus obtained by analysis, the psychologist then
describes these complex contents as a combination of the elemental con-
tents involved.
As previously noted, the functional psychologist has no quarrel with
the positive features of this program. Most functional psychologists are
accustomed to incorporate a considerable amount of such material in
their texts. They object to the proposed limitations of this program, and
insist upon the inclusion of other data.
V 1 ) Functional psychology chooses mental acts, such as seeing, tasting,
■conceiving, and willing, as its objects of study, rather than bare contents.
2) It thus includes the phenomena of meaning and of functional
relationships vnthin its subject-matter.
3) Some functional psychologists, I am inclined to think, would ob-
ject to limiting their scientific task to that of mere description.
4) Functional psychologists, in so far as they do describe, insist upon
the necessity as well as upon the right of describing an object — be it a
content or a mental act — in terms of its relations to other objects, as well
•as in terms of its analytical components.
HARVEY CARR 65
5) They have also continually insisted that a description even of
contents in terms of their analytical constituents must embrace other
components than elemental contents if the description is to be adequate
and complete.
I have heard that this latter proposition has been lately rediscovered by
the configurationists, and hence I shall add by vi^ay of illustration a quo-
tation from an article (7) published in 1909.
"Is the nature of a mental compound accurately seized, after all, when we
have told off its constituents, even in their right proportion? . . . And yet nothing,
it seems to me, could well be farther from the truth. For the original mental
fact which we would describe has, in most instances, what we might call archi-
tectural features, and its nature and quality consists not only in the character of
its materials but in the manner of their union or arrangement.
"Any analysis that names merely the ingredients may therefore miss the full
truth; it may note no difference in compounds that actually are different. The
safe and reliable description of the more complex mental facts accordingly re-
quires that our idea of analysis be revised to include an attention to the archi-
tectural features of such phenomena, including of course their manner of change.
Or if we prefer to let analysis mean what it has ordinarily meant, then only when
analysis is supplemented by an account of the form of the process or object is
there any guarantee that the description will be faithful to all the fulness of the
reality."
/ A science must first break up its world into convenient units or objects /
for separate study. As indicated, mental acts are the objects with which
a functional psychology is concerned. In experiential terms, an act is a
group or pattern of contents exhibiting a unity from the standpoint of its
meaningful implications as to end result. An act thus involves the aware-
ness of the adaptive meaning or significance of a pattern of contents, and
different acts are to be distinguished on the basis of their end results as
well as in terms of their constituent components. The first act in the
above illustration is not merely a given pattern of visual and somaesthetic
contents, but a pattern exhibiting various meanings. For one thing it is
a leg activity, it is also an act of walking, and it is also an act of walking
home to lunch. As an act, it cannot be adequately defined except in terms
of its actual or potential end result. The act of perceiving the cold and
drizzly rain is more than a spatial and temporal pattern of visual con-
tents. These contents also exhibit a meaning and they involve a reaction
on the part of the percipient subject. The act of perception involves an
interpretation of these contents as to their particular objective significance
that is relevant to the preceding act of walking home. Thus a functional ~\
psychology in the very choice of its objects necessarily deals with meanings \
and functional relations as well as with contents. It is also obvious that I
a study of meanings involves that of functional relations and vice versa, /
for there can be no meanings without such relations.
A functional psychology studies these acts in various ways. It is will-
ing to analyze these acts into their simpler components of meaning, con-
tents, and the relations involved in a pattern of contents. It
is also willing to analyze these contents into their elemental con-
tents. It is also interested in studying the various contingent
66 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
relations between the several components of an act, such as the contingent
relation of meaning to content, the stimulus and response relations of the
alternate leg motions in walking, the effect of the adjustive reaction on the
sensory contents in perception, etc. It also studies the contingent relations
between the various acts of the series, such as the contingency of the percep-
tion of the rain to the act of walking home, the effect of this perceptual ac-
tivity on the act of walking, the effect of the resulting dilemma upon the
discovery of the parked automobile, etc. It will also call attention to the
contingency of this series of acts upon the preceding fact of hunger, and to
the further fact that this series of acts was instrumental in allaying that
condition. A functional psychology is also willing to note incidentally
that this satiation of hunger entailed consequences of a physiological and
biological character. A functional psychology will also study these acts
from the standpoint of their genetic history and note the various features
of these acts that are contingent upon the previous activity of the organ-
ism. Finally, it will correlate these acts with the structure and physio-
logical features of the organism so far as it is possible to do so. A func-
tional psychology is thus primarily interested in correlating these acts in all
possible ways. It suffers from no taboos in this respect. It will attempt
to correlate the various features of these acts with anything, provided that
the correlations are of an observable and demonstrable character.
Functional psychology studies acts whose unity is a matter of reference.
Existentialism studies complex contents ; it speaks of blends, fusions, com-
binations, and patterns of contents. What is the basis of the distinction
between one complex or pattern and two? The same question may well
be asked concerning gestalts and configurations. Are the somaesthetic
contents involved in each leg movement separate patterns, or is the whole
series of contents involved in walking home just one pattern? Are the
unitary complexes qualitatively homogeneous spatial and temporal units?
What is the criterion of unity involved? Is there any unity except in
terms of meaning or reference? Titchener in his texts first develops his
descriptive technique of elemental contents, and then proceeds to describe
the group of contents involved in perception, ideas, emotions, moods, mem-
ory, imagination, and action, and yet Titchener (13) has taken Wundt
somewhat petulantly to task for his lack of insight in retaining a whole ar-
rav of empirical terras such as perception, emotion, memory, and imagina-
tion. Are not the objects of existentialism indirectly differentiated on
much the same basis as those of functional psychology, i. e., on the basis of
meaning and reference ?
Existentialism, as a matter of fact, does not discard all meanings and re-
lations. The contents are named, compared, classified, analyzed into their
constituent elements, and described in terms of these elements. Obviously
these contents must have some meaning in order to be objects of a science,
and obviously these objects are being manipulated on the basis of their
relations of similarity and of part and whole, to say the least. The intent
of these remarks is not critical. I merely wish to note by way of contrast
that existentialism merely discards certain meanings and relations and re-
HARVEY CARR 67
tains others, for it studies these contents on the basis of certain meanings
and relations which they bear to one another.
Existentialism does not even discard all contingent relations. Existen-
tialists frequently study the psychophysical relation. Titchener in his
Primer of Psychology (8) states that a science must explain, and that
mental processes are explained by a statement of their bodily conditions,
i. e., in terms of their bodily correlates. Weld (15, p. 65) asserts that the
task of the psychologist includes also the correlation of mental and neural
processes, but he adds that this correlation implies no causal connection.
The writer has always been at a loss to decide whether these relations are
studied in their own right, or whether they are utilized merely as a means
of analyzing and classifying contents as in the distinction of visual, audi-
tory, and gustatory sensations. If these two relations are studied in their
own right, the question naturally arises whether their inclusion is incon-
sistent with the existential program of analytical description. If their in-
clusion is not inconsistent with this program, what is the distinctive prin-
ciple that differentiates the two programs? The author will not attempt
to answer these questions.
So far we have been primarily concerned with contrasting the two rival
programs, without attempting to evaluate them. We shall now briefly
review some of the more important arguments as to the legitimacy of the
functional program.
It has been charged that the very term function has been used in a loose,
vague, and perhaps inconsistent manner. Certainly the functionalists did
not attempt to define the term in any precise way. Perhaps they assumed
that the meaning of the term would be evident from the context. Ruck-
mick has shown that the functionalists did use the term in some consistent
way inasmuch as all usages can be grouped under two well-defined cate-
gories, while I have indicated that the term as used is capable of a precise
and definite formulation.
It has been said that meanings, values, and relations are not introspecta-
ble items of experience ; only contents can be introspected. Inasmuch as it
was generally admitted at this time that introspection is the only observa-
tional method of psychology, it follows that meanings, values, and relations
are non-psychological data. One cannot introspect a mental act ; one can
only introspectively apprehend the contents involved in such acts. Much
of the functionalistic program is thus non-psychological in character.
Meanings, for example, are said to belong to the realm of logic. Func-
tionalism is thus not a true psychology, or rather it is a psychology mixed
with logic and other things, with psychology constituting but a small part
of the conglomerate mixture.
Titchener (9) has developed his conception of the nature of introspec-
tion in a couple of articles. He asserts that we cannot introspect causal
relations, physiological dependence, and genetic relations. Causation, de-
pendence, and development are matters of inference and not data of intro-
spection. Introspection, we are told, cannot itself be introspected. Per-
ceiving is an act or function, and acts and functions cannot be introspected ;
68 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
they are logical abstractions, and we cannot (introspectively) observe any
product of logical abstraction. We cannot (introspectively) observe
relations, but we can observe content processes in relation. We cannot
observe change, though we can observe changing content processes. We
cannot observe causation, though we can observe content processes that are
causally related. Introspection approaches mind from the special stand-
point of descriptive psychology; it gives data with which to describe ob-
jects. The introspectively observable items of experience are content pro-
cesses. Consciousness as a describable object is that which can be described
in terms of elemental contents and their attributes. Mental data exhibit
a host of real relations, and a competent experimenter will note these rela-
tions, but he will not use them for purposes of psychological description.
Verbal statements of meaning are informative, but they are not psychologi-
cally descriptive. Differences of import or value also transcend descrip-
tion, and psychology must limit itself to description.
Titchener is here engaged in the task of expounding and defining the
term introspection as he is accustomed to use it, and it is well to note that
all usages of terms are to some extent arbitrary. He defines introspection
in both negative and positive terms. On the negative side, introspection
cannot itself be introspected, i. e., it cannot be psychologically described on
the basis of its analytical constituents. On the positive side, introspection
is one of those mental acts or functions that is to be defined in terms of its
object, and these objects of introspection are invariably contents and their
attributes as abstracted from the context of relations, meanings, and val-
ues in which they always appear.
All this is quite clear and simple. If one assumes that introspection is
the only psychological method of observation, and also accepts the Titch-
enerian definition of this term, it requires no great feat of logic to con-
clude that psychology is concerned only with contents, and that meanings,
values, and relations are data of a non-psychological character.
Inasmuch as functionalists do concern themselves with these features of
mental life, one must assume that their use of the term introspection dif-
fers somewhat from that of Titchener. The question at issue then is a
matter of terminology and not one of fact.
There can be no dispute concerning the factual question whether one
can give a valid observational report about meanings, values, and relations.
According to Titchener, a competent experimenter will note and report
these meanings and relations; he is merely forbidden to use them for pur-
pose of psychological description. It is also obvious that if one cannot go
beyond these contents and report what these contents mean or represent
there can be no science of physics, chemistry, or biology. In fact, the only
possible science would be that of existentialism. Questions of terminology
should never be allowed to obscure questions of fact, and certainly the
phenomena of meaning, value, and relations cannot be excluded from the
realm of psychology on the grounds of their non-observability. According
to Bentley (3, p. 401), structuralism has never justified its dogmatic asser-
tion that first-hand observation of human experience was synonymous with
structural observation.
HARVEY CARR (59
Several psychologists with functionalistic inclinations have proposed the
addition of relational elements to the conventional list of sensory, imaginal,
and affective elements, and a few have suggested the inclusion of a mean-
ing element. The writer has sympathized with Titchener in this contro-
versy. Certainly meanings and relations are not contents, and neither are
they elements in the same sense of the term as are the conventional ele-
ments of existentialism. To refer to meanings and relations as elements
that are to be classified as coordinate with the sensory and affective ele-
ments is not only illegitimate but confusing. But this fact does not entail
their exclusion from all psychological consideration.
One of the most serious charges against functionalism, and in fact
against the whole empirical movement, is that it lacks somewhat in respect
to its scientific character. Sometimes we are led to infer that functional-
ism is not a true science, but rather a pseudo-science or a scientific pretend-
er. Empirical psychologies — functional and act psychologies — belong to
the realm of the applied sciences as contrasted with the purity of existen-
tialism. Existentialism is a critical science, and empirical psychologies
are non-critical or pre-scientific, and, finally, existentialism is referred to as
the experimental type of psychology as contrasted with those that presum-
ably are not experimental.
A few excerpts (12, pp. 79-81) may here be quoted to illustrate the
general tenor of these criticisms.
"Functional psychology is a parasite, and the parasite of an organism doomed
to extinction, whereas intentionalism is as durable as common sense."
"We have found that in both cases (functionalism and intentionalism) they are
empirical, that is, technological : they begin and end with 'mind in use,' They
represent what we may call an art of living as distinguished from a science of
mental life — a general 'applied psychology' that is logically prior to the special
'applied psychologies' of education, vocation, law, medicine, industry."
"It (intentionalism) is thus, like common sense, an applied logic, though unlike
common sense its interest lies more in the logic and less in the results of applica-
tion."
"The one complete and positive reply to intentionalism is the existential system,
the system that is partially and confusedly set forth in the works of Wundt and
Kiilpe and Ebbinghaus. If we can build psychology upon a definition that is
scientific as the word 'science' is to be understood in the light of the whole history
of human thought; and if we can follow methods and achieve results that are not
unique and apart but, on the contrary, of the same order as the methods and
results of physics and biology; then, by sheer shock of difference, the act-systems
will appear as exercises in applied logic, stamped with the personality of their
authors. They will not, on that account, languish and die, because 'mind in use'
will always have its fascination, but they will no longer venture to offer themselves
as science."
It would seem from these and other comments that empiricism (func-
tionalism and intentionalism) transgresses the spirit of a pure science in
three respects: {a) It brazenly studies the uses or utilities of mental acts
singly and as a whole, {b) It has been avidly instrumental in exploring
and developing the various special fields such as testing and educational, in-
dustrial, legal, and abnormal psychology, (c) And, finally, it has exhibit-
ed some pride in the social utility of its labors.
70 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
There is no doubt that functionalism has done these three things, but
the charge that its so doing is a violation of the spirit of a pure science is
another question, and one concerning which there may be a legitimate dif-
ference of opinion.
What is the difference between a pure and an applied science, and why
do we regard a pure science as the more valuable?
1) The two cannot be differentiated on the basis of the situation or
the locality in which the work is done. Pure scientific research may be
conducted in an industrial laboratory as well as in a university laboratory
or in a secluded cloister. In fact, many exhibitions of pure scientific re-
search are being furnished yearly by some of our better industrial labora-
tories and by some of our psychological clinics as well.
2) Neither can they be differentiated on the basis of the field or phe-
nomenon investigated. In the field of educational psychology most of the
studies on memory and learning have been conducted in the spirit of pure
science. I know of some studies of the perceptual activities involved in
reading that are models of a pure scientific attitude. A few of the studies
in the field of mental tests are exhibitions of pure scientific procedure, and
many studies of aberrant behavior have been conducted in the same spirit.
3) We are sometimes told that a pure science is one that has no con-
cern for values, but it is concerned at least with scientific values. Not all
facts or attributes of a phenomenon are equally significant or valuable
from the standpoint of science any more than they are from the standpoint
of everyday behavior. One might study and compare and classify rocks
on the basis of such superficial qualities as color or size and conduct the
investigation in a pure scientific attitude, but such a study would hardly be
considered a legitimate scientific undertaking. Such facts would lack any
scientific value. Many of the early botanical classifications were scienti-
fically futile, and we may refer to James's comment upon the status of the
early studies of emotion. Science does not study anything and every-
thing even within its own field. Not all scientific facts are equally val-
uable even from the standpoint of science. Science does have some sort of
a concern for values. What is the criterion of the scientific value of a
fact? I raise the question, but shall not attempt to answer it.
4) According to one definition, a pure science is one that is solely in-
terested in an adequate understanding of the phenomena under considera-
tion, but one that has no concern for the social or practical value of its
findings. A pure science merely wants to know and is wholly unconcerned
as to whether the knowledge it obtains can or cannot be usefully applied to
the guidance of conduct.
This unconcern as to the utility of scientific knowledge needs a word of
comment. A pure scientist can exhibit no aversion to the discovery of use-
ful knowledge. He will neither intentionally nor inadvertently arrange
his investigations so as to avoid the possibility of obtaining useful data.
Neither will he refrain from studying certain problems and investigating
certain fields for fear he may discover something useful. A pure scientist
will welcome both useful and useless knowledge with equal gusto. It is
HARVEY CARR 71
related that a noted mathematician concluded his demonstration of a new
mathematical formula with the statement that he was specially proud of
the fact that the formula could never be turned to any practical use. Such
an attitude is not consonant with that of pure science.
5) Finally, there is the pragmatic point of view that science must
ultimately justify itself on the basis of the social value of its findings, but
that the pure-science attitude of seeking to understand without any concern
as to immediate values is the best method of ultimately achieving socially
useful knowledge. A scientist thus hopes and expects that his labors will
ultimately be socially fruitful, but he recognizes that the best way to
achieve this result is to adopt an attitude of unconcern as to the immediate
value of his experiments. With this attitude of mind, a scientist may de-
liberately choose, if he wishes, to enter those fields where the probabilities
are greatest of discovering socially significant results. This point of view
is, perhaps, a reflection of our national temperament.
We may now return to the three charges lodged against functionalism
and empiricism in general. The fact that functionalism exhibits some
pride in the social value of its achievements is no violation of the spirit of
pure science. A pure scientist welcomes both useful and useless knowledge
with equal acclaim. We may note that chemistry, physics, geology, and
even mathematics are also accustomed to point with considerable pride.
As already indicated, the development of the various special fields does not
necessarily involve a transgression of the strict letter of the law, for a pure
science is not to be characterized on the basis of what it studies. What
better exhibition of the pure scientific attitude can be found than that of
Spearman in the field of mental tests? Finally, the uses or utilities of
mind can be studied with purity of scientific attitude. There is considera-
ble difference between being concerned with studying the uses of mind and
being concerned with the uses of what we find out from that study. Theo-
retically it is possible to secure wholly useless knowledge about the uses of
mind.
We may now raise the question whether existentialism is entirely free
from taint in this respect. Do the existentialists exhibit an attitude of
strict unconcern and indifference? Do they not show some slight con-
cern lest they find something useful? Why all this aversion to anything
that is tinged with use? Why the emotional complex against the special
fields? Why the fear of contamination? Why the horror against the
useful? Is this the proper attitude of a pure and critical science, or is
their attitude somewhat hypercritical? I suspect that the existentialists,
like the mathematician referred to, have been leaning over backwards in
their attempt to preserve a spotless purity.
Functional psychologies, according to Titchener (11), are teleological,
and teleology is essentially non-scientific. Functional psychology was born
of the enthusiasm of the post-Darwinian days, when evolution seemed to
answer all the riddles of the universe; it has been nourished on analogies
drawn from a loose and popular biology. Not only psychology but biology
is suffering from an unbridled license of teleological interpretation. Tele-
72 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
ology came down to the functional psychologist from the older empiricism.
It is guaranteed by philosophy and technology, and it is justified by bio-
logical example. Small wonder then that he should step easily, even
heedlessly, into the teleological attitude.
Titchener's charge that teleological interpretations have been overdone
in both the fields of psychology and biology, in my opinion, is true. Start-
ing with the doctrine that the direction of evolution is a result of natural
selection and that natural conditions operate by eliminating the most unfit
and selecting those that are fit, many early writers assumed that each and
every evolutionary product must have a survival value. If no value is
apparent, they must discover and assign one irrespective of the facts. Since
emotional reactions, for example, are presumed to be evolutionary prod-
ucts, each emotion and each characteristic of these emotions must have a
survival value, and it is the business of the psychologist to assign these even
though he can do little better than make a vnld guess as to their nature.
This attitude is the resultant of several illicit assumptions as to the logical
implications of the theory of natural selection.
As careful thinkers early pointed out, evolutionary products need have a
survival value only under those circumstances in which they were selected.
After they have been selected, they may be perpetuated and continue to
pxist when the conditions have so changed that they have no survival value.
In other words, biologically useful characters may become useless with a
pronounced change in the conditions of life.
An organism may be regarded as a unitary group of hereditary charac-
ters— structural and behavioristic. It is often tacitly assumed that nat-
ural selection operates directly upon the individual characters theniselves,
and that it eliminates and preserves these characters each according to its
own individual merit. Natural selection, however, operates upon the or-
ganism, i. e., it selects a complex group of characters. It is the organism^
that either survives or goes to the wall in the struggle for existence. Not
all of the characters of the surviving organisms thus need to be useful.
Characters may appear and persist that are neither useful nor detrimental
to survival. Organisms with a number of biologically neutral or indif-
ferent traits may survive if they have a sufficient number of useful ones.
As a matter of sheer theory, organisms with a detrimental characteristic
may continue to exist if this defect is sufficiently compensated for by useful
traits. There is thus no need to assume that each and every biological
character has a survival value.
The very term natural selection erroneously suggests that natural forces
directly select the fit organisms. The natural forces, however, operate to
eliminate the unfit, and the selection of the fit is incidental to the process
of elimination. Moreover, the degree or extent to which the unfit are
eliminated is a function of the degree of competition in the struggle for
life, and this latter varies with circumstances. Only the most unfit are
eliminated, and the least unfit survive. Again not all of the characters of
the surviving organisms need be useful, and furthermore the organisms
that survive do not need to be perfectly adapted to their environment, i. e.,
HARVEY CARR 73
100% fit. According to the theory of natural selection, they need only
to be more fit than those that were eliminated.
It may be well at this point to note the distinction between biological
utility and other modes of usefulness. Trees are useful to man for their
lumber, but this is not a biological utility. The theory of natural selec-
tion does not pretend to account for the evolution of this characteristic of
trees on the basis of such a use. The theory accounts for the evolutionary
development of a character only on the basis of its utility to the organism
that possesses it, viz., the tree, and not on the basis of its usefulness to
some other organism like man. Again some characters of an organism may
be selected and preserved because of their survival value, and then be
utilized for other purposes at a later time. A person might employ his toes
for purposes of writing, but this use in no way accounts for the evolution-
ary development of these organs. Society is accustomed to use the fear
reaction to attain certain social ends, but this does not necessarily repre-
sent its biological or survival value ; in fact, this social value does not even
justify the assumption of a biological value for this trait.
In respect to teleological explanations, we may note that the process
of natural selection on the basis of survival value accounts merely for the
preservation of traits and not for their origin. The process of natural
selection does not purport to explain the origin of mutants, but given
mutants it accounts for the direction of evolutionary development. Bio-
logical needs and utilities select but do not create. The existence of a
need does not guarantee the development of an organ to supply that need.
We have admitted that psychologists have been guilty of some weird
teleological interpretations, but psychologists have not been the only sin-
ners. Even Titchener is not entirely free from guilt in this respect, for
some of his criticisms involve certain of the erroneous assumptions that
have just been mentioned.
He takes the functionalist to task for his inconsistency in not giving a
teleological interpretation to every mental item. The psychologist may
answer any number of whys, but he is still faced by unanswerable why-
nots that throw doubt upon his positive explanations. How has the de-
velopment of red-green vision aided man in the struggle for existence, or
what has man gained by the "unique compromise process" which gives rise
to the purple sensation? These and like questions are not touched, we are
told. Is not Titchener here assuming that all evolutionary products must
have a ^survival value?
He refers to Judd's statement concerning the lack of an electric sense in
man and the utility of such a sense-organ equipment, and then makes the
following comment :
"Granted that the facts are as stated and granted that this furtherance of knowl-
edge is useful, why have we not the special organ? — for it is surely evident that
biological conditions, which have produced the 'electric fishes,' are also competenr
to produce an electrical sense-organ in man" (11, p. 539).
Does Titchener assume that the theory of evolution by natural selection
involves the doctrine that biological needs create the means of their at-
tainment ?
74 ' PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
As a part of his criticisms, he caustically comments upon the fact that
the human eye is far from perfect inasmuch as its native usefulness has
been immeasurably improved by the microscope and the telescope. Does
this criticism not involve the assumption that the theory of evolution im-
plies a 100% fitness?
While teleological interpretations have been overdone, it does not fol-
lovr that teleology is essentially non-scientific and that all teleological in-
terpretations should therefore be discarded. One might as w^ell argue
that science should cease theorizing and making hypotheses and conclu-
sions because it has made so many mistakes in these respects in times past.
We must recognize that the place of teleology in science is a moot ques-
tion concerning which there are differences of opinion among biologists,
psychologists, and philosophers. Titchener's attitude that teleology is
non-scientific finds its supporters among biologists, but it is also w^ell to note
that many biologists as well as psychologists have not discarded all telic
conceptions.
What is teleology, and in what respects is it legitimate and when is it
illegitimate? I would say that telic conceptions are involved in all
statements concerning use, utility, adaptation, purpose, and means and
ends, and all of these terms imply a certain kind of contingent relationship.
I see no objection to noting and stating these relations in so far as their
factual character is observable and demonstrable. Such statements as the
sense-organs are the means whereby we gain knowledge of the objective
world, the muscles are devices for reacting to that world so as to satisfy
organic needs, vocal activities are used in thinking, etc., are unobjectionable
as mere statements of fact. One difficulty arises when one of the terms of
the relation is supplied by a process of speculative inference, and these spec-
ulations masquerade under the guise of fact. But this type of difficulty is
plot peculiar to the study of telic relations.
The usual objection to such statements of telic relations — even factual
ones — is that they imply an illegitimate type of explanation. It is some-
times charged that such statements imply the existence of some design,
purpose, insight, or intelligence — some prior existential factor that is caus-
ally responsible for these telic relations. Again it is said that such
statements tacitly assume that the end result operates as the cause of the
prior process by which it was attained — an assumption which violates the
temporal requirements of a cause-and-effect relation.
Can one make a statement concerning any of these telic relations as mere
statements of fact without any explanatory implications whatever? The
author is disposed to believe that these statements can be and are often
made without such implications on the part of either the writer or the
reader.
When implications are involved, the statements may not imply any par-
ticular kind of explanation — let alone an illegitimate one, such as that of
design. The purposive psychologist does assume more or less explicitly
the existence of innate conscious purposes to explain the origin of adaptive
behavior, but in my opinion the great majority of functional psychologists
HARVEY CARR 75
do not do so either implicitly or explicitly. With those functionalists
with whom I am well acquainted, implications of design are foreign to their i
intent and to their unconscious biases as well. If design is suggested, is ;
the fault to be found in the mode of statement or in the interpretative re- ,
action of the reader? ,
However, there can be no objection to statements that are explanator- j
ily suggestive, if these telic relations can be legitimately explained. The 1
usual explanation of the adaptive character of our acquired reactions is
that of the law of effect, which accounts for the selection and elimination
of acts on the basis of their consequents. The law does not attempt to
explain the origin of these acts, any more than does the theory of nat-
ural selection purport to account for the origin of mutants. The law
merely accounts for the fixation of the adaptive acts and the elimination
of the non-adaptive ones, and thus accounts for the direction of mental de-
velopment. Neither does the law of effect violate the temporal require-
ments of a cause-and-effect relation, for many of the effective consequents
occur during the performance of the act, and besides the law assumes that
these consequents merely affect the subsequent performance of that act
(5, pp. 95-96).
We would thus conclude that telic concepts can be legitimately retained
in a science so long as it confines itself to factual statements of these rela-
tions and explains these facts in a legitimate manner.
Titchener's statements that science is concerned only with description
and that objects can be described only in terms of their constituent ele-
ments deserves a few words of comment. What is description and why
does science describe? Scientists necessarily report their findings, and in
this sense of the term they "describe" not only their objects of study but
their methods, procedures, hypotheses, and the knowledge they obtain of
these objects as well. Description in this sense is only the final step of
science, for obviously this description presupposes a considerable variety of
prior activities. Moreover, this type of description cannot be limited to
statements of the analytical composition of that which is described, for
procedures, hypotheses, and analytical elements, as well as the objects
analyzed are described. What, then, does Titchener mean by description?
Perhaps the question may be clarified by ignoring the term description and
defining Titchener's program in terms of the type of knowledge sought.
In effect, the Titchener doctrine merely asserts that any legitimate scientific
knowledge of psychological objects is limited to a knowledge of their con-
stituent elements and the laws governing their combinations in those ob-
jects. Titchener's appeal to physics and physiology in support of this doc-
trine is hardly appropriate. The analogous program among the natural
sciences is that of chemistry and histology, while the program of physics,
physiology, geology, and biology is more akin to that of functionalism.
Analytical knowledge of the constituent elements of objects is not the only
scientific goal, and in this connection we may quote from Bentley (3, pp.
401-402) :
"Neither has it (structuralism) justified its contention that the main method of
76 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
science was analysis. It is, as I think, not much less than a caricature of the
sciences of nature to say that the physicist, the chemist, and the zoologist are
always and only analyzing it has, for some time, been generally conceived
to be a formal and logical — not a realistic — view of science which has brought
into relief the typical chemist or physicist as forever breaking down his substances
into constituent elements. Analysis, surely, but not simply analysis: and, for many
problems, not analysis at all."
I would add to this quotation the further statement that there are other
modes of analysis than that of the existential type.
The main defects of the functional psychologies of the period under con-
sideration are, in my opinion, those that arose from their adoption of a
dualistic position. Dualism involves no difficulties to an existentialist be-
cause he stays strictly w^ithin the confines of consciousness. When con-
scious activities, however, are conceived as a separate but effective part of
the total biological process, the question of the mutual relations of these
dual parts to each other immediately comes to the fore.
The existentialists have been caustic and trenchant in their criticisms.
We may here refer to the much criticized and widely quoted statement of
Angell (1, p. 59):
"Let it be understood once and for all that wherever we speak, as occasionally
we do, as though the mind might in a wholly unique manner step in and bring
about changes in the action of the nervous system, we are employing a convenient
abbreviation of expression . . ."
Titchener has also voiced his objections to statements as to the origin of
consciousness, when and where consciousness comes in, and its function as
a solver of problems.
When the functionalist treats of the observed uses of particular acts like
perception, he is on safe ground. When he deals with the biological ori-
gin of consciousness as a whole and its function in the biological process,
he is entering the field of speculation where there is an opportunity for a
legitimate difference of opinion. Moreover, speculative opinions are like-
ly to be expressed as statements of fact. Neither should an empirical
science of fact adopt a position which forces it to substitute circumlocutions
for straightforward statements of fact.
What happened to this functionalistic movement? Did it evolve and
disappear in the process of development, or does it still persist in a modi-
fied form? In my opinion, American empiricism has undergone two
major developments since the time of which we write.
Dynamic psychology represents a further development of the implica-
tions of the biological point of view. Functionalism had assumed that
mental acts grow out of and minister to the biological needs and impulses
of the organism. According to this conception, the organic background of
needs and desires operates to motivate and direct the whole course of men-
tal development, but this fact was more or less taken for granted, or at
least the influence of these factors was not sufficiently emphasized. In
their emphasis upon drives and motivation, dynamic psychologists have
been attempting to portray these factors in a manner that is more com-
mensurate with their importance.
HARVEY CARR 77
Behaviorism, to a considerable extent at least, was an attempt to avoid
the difficulties inherent in a dualistic position. The radical behaviorists
solved the problem by either denying or ignoring the fact of consciousness,
while the moderate behaviorists are prone to talk in monistic terms of the
behavior of a psychophysical or a psychobiological organism.
The above fact has been well developed by Weiss (14). He notes that
the functionalistic assumption that conscious activities influence behavior is
inconsistent with its dualistic position. The further assumption of parallel-
ism the functionalist fails to explain. The functionalist to be consistent must
accept interactionism, and he is then confronted with the task of rationally
conceiving of this process. The further possibilities are to study conscious-
ness alone and omit its influence upon behavior, i. e., discard a large part
of the functionalistic program, or to study behavior alone and neglect or
disregard the fact of consciousness. Weiss then proceeds to develop and
justify his particular program in which consciousness is disregarded.
Weiss apparently assumes that the dualism of the functionalist is nec-
essarily ontological in character. Given this assumption, there is no escap-
ing his conclusions. I doubt the truth of his assumption, however. An- .
gell has said that a functionalist can accept any one of the various concep- !
tions as to the nature of the mind-body dualism with the single exception
of that of epiphenomenalism. I do not pretend to know the philosophical
inclinations of most functionalists, but it has always been my impression
that Angell's dualism was of the methodological variety. It has also been
my opinion that dualism is a poor methodological device for a functional-
ism with strong biological leanings. I agree with Weiss that a functional-
ist is bound to adopt some sort of a monistic conception, but I think that
there are other monistic positions possible than the two alternatives that he
mentions.
The functionalistic movement has thus undergone considerable develop-
ment. Did functionalism disappear with this development, or are these later
developments functionalistic in character? The answer depends upon the
definition of functionalism adopted. Functionalism and existentialism
represent two opposing points of view toward the subject-matter of psy-
chology, and this subject-matter, at the time of this controversy, was con-
scious processes dualistically conceived. If functionalism is to be defined
in terms of point of view as well as in terms of subject-matter, i. e., as a
study of the functions of conscious activities, then functionalism per se is
on the wane. If functionalism, however, is to be defined solely in terms
of its point of view without any regard to what it studies, then the various
behaviorisms are functional psychologies. For example, one can study
behavior in two ways: {a) One can assert that the object of psychology
is to describe behavior, and that it can be described only in terms of its
constituent elements, viz., reflexes. It is thus the business of psychology to
analyze the various complex forms of behavior into their simplest reflex
elements, and to study the laws governing the combinations of these ele-
mental reflexes in behavior patterns. We have here a program essentially
like that of the existentialist with simple reflexes substituted for his sen-
78 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
sation elements, (b) On the other hand, one can adopt the functional-
istic program of studying functional interrelations of the temporal parts of
a complex act, its functional relation to organic needs, its dependence upon
previous behavior, and its relation to the structural and physiological char-
acteristics of the organism. How one shall answer the question thus de-
pends upon the definition adopted. I shall let the reader answer the ques-
tion as he sees fit.
What has been the outcome of this controversy? Some of the existen-
tialists still maintain the faith, some have developed functionalistic in-
clinations, and a few have given signs of seeking refuge in configuration-
ism. I know of no whole-hearted conversions to existentialism from the
functionalistic ranks. The American empirical movement has maintained
itself against attack and has gone on developing in accordance with its
own particular genius. The controversy in acute form did not persist for
long. A working truce of mutual respect was soon attained — a truce that
has not been violated except for an occasional outburst on the part of some
irrepressible spirit.
REFERENCES
1. Angell, J. R. Psychology. New York: Holt, 1904. Pp. vii-|-402.
2. . The province of functional psychology. Psychol. Rev., 1907,
14, 61-91.
3. Bentley, M. The work of the structuralists. Chap. 18 in Psychologies of
1925. Worcester, Mass.: Clark Univ. Press, 1926. Pp. 395-404.
4. Boring, E. G. The psychology of controversy. Psychol. Rev., 1929, 36, 97-121.
5. Carr, H. a. Psychology. New York: Longmans, Green, 1925. Pp. 226.
6. RUCKMICK, C. A. The use of the term function in English textbooks of psy-
chology. Amer. J. Psychol., 1913, 24, 99-123.
7. Stratton, G. M. Toward the correction of some rival methods in psychology.
Psychol. Rev., 1909, 16, 67-84.
8. TiTCHENER, E. B. A primer of psychology. New York: Macmillan, 1898.
Pp. xvi+314.
9. . Prolegomena to a study of introspection. Amer. J, Psychol.,
1912, 23, 427-448.
10. . The schema of introspection. Amer. J. Psychol., 1912, 23,
485-508.
11. . Functional psychology and the psychology of act, I. Amer. J,
Psychol., 1921, 32, 519-542.
12. . Functional psychology and the psychology of act, IL Amer. J.
Psychol., 1922, 33, 43-83.
13. . Experimental psychology: a retrospect. Amer. J. Psychol.,
1925, 36, 313-323.
14. Weiss, A. P. Relation between functional and behavior psychology. Psychol.
Rev., 1917, 24, 301-317.
15. Weld, H. P. Psychology as science. New York: Holt, 1928. Pp. vii+297.
PART IV
PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORIES OF THOSE
WHOSE TRAINING BACKGROUND
WAS THE STRUCTURALISM
OF E. B. TITCHENER
CHAPTER 4
A SYSTEM OF MOTOR PSYCHOLOGY
Margaret Floy Washburn
Vassar College
I. Metaphysical Background
Underlying the suppositions which this system makes are certain con-
victions regarding the nature of the world and the limitations of human
knowledge.
First, dualism. So far as we can comprehend it, the world involves
two types of processes: {a) material processes, which are qualitatively uni«
form and can be treated only quantitatively, and {b) mental processes.
The material world reduces itself, science tells us, to discontinuous quan-
tity, but the world of consciousness is a world of continuity which in-
volves qualities as well as quantity. The material world is a sum of move-
ments, but no sensation quality can ever be identified with a movement.
Blue may be caused by movement of a certain frequency, but it is not
itself a movement. Hence the world of the behaviorist is a world lack-
ing all qualities : it has neither colors nor tones nor smells nor even feelings
of muscular strain (11). Every metaphysical system that attempts to
reduce qualities to movements begs this question at some point (10).
Secondly, mechanism. The world of qualities or conscious processes
never affects the world of movements or material processes causally. Con-
scious processes are epiphenomena ; merely the invariable accompaniment
of certain types of material processes. It is only a movement or material
process that can cause or in any way influence another material process.
The evidence for this assertion is as follows :
1 ) The great fertility of such a supposition in explaining and especially
in predicting events in physical science.
2) The proofs furnished, for example by the chemistry of nutrition,
that a large body of vital phenomena also can be explained and predicted
by the same hypothesis.
3) The danger that if we assume the direct causal action of non-
material agents on matter we shall revert to mystical and primitive habits
of thinking from which humanity has had a long struggle to free itself
even imperfectly. If, for example, we cannot yet explain all the phe-
nomena of growth and regeneration in living beings as due to new com-
binations of known physicochemical laws, it is more scientific to make
further efforts along the lines that have already yielded so much than to
assume the existence of a totally new causal agent. Anybody can make
such assumptions; it needs no more trouble than primitive man took when
he said there was a devil in the thing (15).
[81]
82 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
The system of psychology which will be here presented rejects the
materialism of the behaviorists, on the one hand, and the interactionism
of the functional psychologists and vitalists, on the other hand. It will
not have recourse to any mysterious agents or indwelling purposes which
by hypothesis cannot belong in a mechanistic system. Thus it is as much
opposed to McDougall as to Watson.
II. Psychological Methods and Aims
Both the observation of behavior and the observation of conscious
processes furnish legitimate material for psychology.
Behaviorism itself does not reject introspection, although calling it
language behavior instead of the observation of conscious processes. The
difference between behavioristic and non-behavioristic psychologies is not
in their methods (the early work in the Leipzig laboratory was purely
objective) but in their metaphysics (behaviorism denies the existence of
conscious processes). Objective methods need to be supplemented by in-
trospection ; for example, while the galvanometric reflex may reveal an
emotional disturbance of which the observer is not conscious, we should
hardly be able to make such an inference if no observer had ever reported
from introspection the presence of emotion accompanying the reflex.
The aim of psychology should be both to describe and to explain behavior
and conscious processes.
If our drives or motives are only those generally called practical, our
ultimate aim will always be to control and, as a means of controlling, to
explain. Practically, it may be said, all that matters is overt behavior; if
we could be sure that a person's bad opinion of us would never be accom-
panied by hostile behavior, the opinion would be negligible. But if, as
becomes the lords of creation, we have the peculiarly human drive to know
for the sake of knowing, we shall wish both to describe and to explain
both behavior and conscious states, not merely that we may control them
but that we may realize more fully the variety of phenomena to be found
in the universe. From this point of view it is well worth while, for
example, to form a conception of the pattern of consciousness in the lower
animals, just to widen one's own horizon; and there are plenty of data
on which to base such a conception (12, chap. 13).
Thus structural psychology and its more modern representative, configu-
rationism, have a legitimate task. But no science can rest satisfied with
description ; it must push on to explanation.
III. The Nervous Basis of Consciousness
There is reason for conjecturing that consciousness accompanies a cer-
tain ratio between the excitation and the inhibition of a motor discharge
(9, chap. 2).
The functional psychologists pointed out that consciousness accompanies
delayed reaction. When stimulation passes over at once into movement,
there is little if any conscious accompaniment. It is a fact of experience
that consciousness tends to lapse when reactions are smoothly performed,
and becomes intense at an interruption.
MARGARET FLOY WASHBURN 83
On the other hand, Miinsterberg (8, pp. 530 £f. ) held that the degree
of consciousness varies directly with the freedom of the motor discharge.
If motor discharge is wholly blocked, there is no consciousness. Take
the phenomena of attention, which of course means the highest degree of
consciousness; when we attend to one thing our reactions to other things
often cease altogether. We certainly are not highly conscious of those
stimuli to which we make no reaction ; for instance, of the telephone bell
to which we failed to respond because we were absorbed in reading.
The facts of habit argue that consciousness accompanies interruption
of response ; the facts of attention argue that it is absent when interruption
is complete. The hypothesis which reconciles this conflict is that conscious-
ness accompanies a certain ratio between excitation and inhibition,
IV. The Cause of Inhibition: Incompatible Movements
A motor response is inhibited when an incompatible movement of greater
prepotency than itself is simultaneously excited. By incompatible move-
ments are meant movements in opposite directions.
The evidence for this hypothesis cannot be fully presented until we have
discussed the function of drives, on which prepotency largely depends.
Some of it will appear from a consideration of the nature of incompatible
movements. Certain muscles are antagonistic in their effects, that is,
they would, if contracting alone, bring about movements in directions oppo-
site to each other: one would raise a limb, the other lower it. They can,
however, be simultaneously contracted under either of two conditions :
{a) when they maintain a fixed posture of the limb, and {b) when, al-
though one is more strongly excited than the other, the latter exerts a cer-
tain amount of drag on the former, so that movement is slow and con-
trolled. But, of course, no part of the body can be simultaneously moved
in opposite directions; movements of this sort are what we shall call in-
compatible movements (9, chap. 2).
V. The Nature of Drives
An important cause of the prepotency of one movement over another
lies in internal states of unrest called drives. A drive is often due to the
lack or excess of some substance of physiological importance, as in the case
of hunger, the sex drive, and fatigue; other conditions which disturb
physiological equilibrium may produce drives. It is characteristic of a
drive that it tends to set in "readiness," or incipient and tentative per-
formance, the "consummatory reaction" that puts an end to it. This was
first pointed out by Wallace Craig (4) in careful observations of the
instinctive behavior of birds. An example is hunger: this is uneasiness
due to lack of food, but the specific sensations of hunger result from the
stomach's making the same contractions that it performs when food is put
into it ; that is, it anticipates the consummatory reactions of the drive.
When there is a conflict between incompatible movements, ordinary
observation will often indicate that the victory goes to that movement
which is connected with the stronger drive. A strange dog encounters
84 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
a man who holds a bone. If the dog has been ill-treated and is not very
hungry, he will run away; fear is stronger than hunger. If he is starving,
he may seize the bone, hunger being stronger than fear.
VI. The Relation of Drives to Emotions ^
An emotion may occur either (a) when the energy of a drive is pre-
vented from discharging into movements which lead towards a restoration
of the physiological balance (adaptive movements) ; such prevention may be
due either to the absence of some necessary external factor, for example, food
in the case of hunger, or to the prepotence of an incompatible movement.
Or (b) joyful emotion may occur when an excess of energy is released at
the end of a period of unsatisfied drive. In an emotion the energy of the
drive, instead of passing into adaptive movements, either discharges into
non-adaptive movements or remains dammed up in visceral regions.
Ordinary observation supports these statements. A drive that can be
satisfied by adaptive movements without delay gives rise to little or no
emotion. The motor processes in emotion are for the most part of no
use to the satisfaction of the drive. They consist, of course, partly of con-
tractions of the striped muscles and partly of visceral changes. The
striped muscle contractions include some which on the Darwinian prin-
ciple were useful under more primitive conditions (the frown, for example,
no longer directly useful since anger does not mean actual physical combat
with the need to keep light out of the eyes) and some that have no use
except to drain excess energy from the viscera; these are the non-adaptive
movements that constitute a motor explosion, such as swearing and knock-
ing furniture about. The visceral changes have been shown by Cannon
to relate to needs. Increased blood-pressure and pulse-rate, shortened
blood-coagulation time, and the other effects of sympathetic nervous activ-
ity and adrenin, are useful in combat. But are they useful in anger,
which, on the suppositions we are making, results from interference with
the fighting drive? They are not useful in themselves even in combat;
only so far as they aid the performance of adaptive movements. If the
increased energy of the drive remains at the visceral level, Cannon (3,
p. 196, note) says, "It is conceivable that the excessive adrenin and sugar
in the blood may have pathological effects." Tradition holds it to be
safer, physiologically, for a person to work off this energy even in a non-
adaptive motor explosion, however unfortunate the social consequences
may be (14).
VII. The Physiological Basis of Motor Learning
It is convenient to divide motor learning into two classes, substitutive
learning (the conditioned reflex) and system-forming learning. The
distinction is not absolute; system-forming learning is a special type of
substitutive learning. In substitutive learning a stimulus loses the re-
sponse which originally belonged to it and acquires the response that
originally belonged to another stimulus reacted to at the same time with
itself. The dog originally gave the fear reaction, running away, to the
MARGARET FLOY WASHBURN 85
Sight of the man. When the man carries a bone, the hunger reaction, that
of coming forward, incompatible with the withdrawal due to fear, is set
up and may be prepotent ; thereafter the sight of the man even without the
bone may cause the dog to move towards him. Thus a stimulus acquires
a new response, and a response acquires a new stimulus. This type of
learning involves the suppression or dropping out of non-prepotent re-
sponses. System-forming learning on the other hand involves not the
dropping-out of movements but the dropping-out of external stimuli. In
system-forming learning new combinations of movements are formed ; no
movement is dropped out, but the stimulus for each movement in the sys-
tem is furnished by the kinaesthetic excitations produced by the perform-
ance of another movement in the system. Thus the original stimulus of a
movement is replaced by kinaesthetic excitations — a special case of sub-
stitutive learning (9, chap. 1),
The existence of substitutive learning is obvious, and the explanation
here given for it seems plausible. That in movement systems kinaesthetic
excitations are substituted for the original stimuli is strongly suggested
by observation of our experience in learning of this type: when we begin
to memorize music each movement needs the stimulus of the notes on the
page; later these visual stimuli become unnecessary, and if we break down
in performing the series of movements we can recover best by repeating
the movements that preceded the stoppage. It certainly seems to us in
such a case that the feel of the earlier movements sets off the later ones.
VIII. Types of Movement Systems
Such systems may be either static, involving prolonged states of contrac-
tion and relaxation of muscles, that is, attitudes; or phasic, involving
actual change of position in space, that is, movements in the ordinary sense
of the term. In a static system the muscular contractions are simultaneous,
and the kinaesthetic theory would suppose that each contraction furnishes
an essential part of the stimulus for all the other contractions. Phasic
systems may be either simultaneous or successive ; in the first case the actual
movements must be carried out together, as in swimming or bicycle-riding,
and the kinaesthetic theory would again suppose that each contraction de-
pends on stimuli from the others; in the second case the movements form
a series, as in reciting a list of nonsense syllables (9, pp. 10-16).
There can be little doubt that successive movement systems of short
duration and frequent performance may come to be innervated as if they
were simultaneous. As will be pointed out in the next section, the action
of the drive tends to set them all in some degree of readiness, greatest for
the final or consummatory movement. Some recent experiments of Lash-
ley's (6), indicating that a rat with any portion of the afferent pathways
in the spinal cord cut can run a maze from memory, lead him to reject the
kinaesthetic theory of learning. But the sequence of turnings in the
simple maze path he used must have been performed many times in a
rat's ordinary experience and may well have become so organized as to be
innervated simultaneously by the stimuli from the external surroundings
together with those from the drive.
86 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
IX. The Relation of Drives to Motor Learning
a) To substitutive learning. This type of learning obviously depends
on the greater prepotence of one movement over another. Prepotence com-
monly though by no means invariably depends upon the existence of the
inner state of unrest termed a drive. There are certain movements which
seem to be regularly in a certain degree of readiness; especially the move-
ments connected with withdrawal from injury. Punishment thus produces
very rapid substitutive learning and does not need to be aided by a pre-
existent drive; whereas food will not produce substitutive learning unless
the animal is hungry. The evidence for these statements is found in
observations on animal behavior.
b) To system-forming learning. The formation of simultaneous and
successive movement systems regularly needs the presence of a drive. An
animal will not learn a maze path or acquire any other complex system
unless it is, during the learning, under the influence of a drive, say hun-
ger, which is satisfied and put an end to by the final movements of the
system; this statement has experimental confirmation.
How does a drive operate to produce the learning of a series of move-
ments, such as the running of a maze, which at their end abolish the drive? i
This process has been felt to be mysterious because it has seemed as though I
the end of the series, the reward, for example, food, must have an effect
on something that preceded it in time, namely, the animal's movements,
which would mean a violation of the law of cause and effect.
In order to solve the puzzle, we must bear in mind several facts, (a)
The drive itself is not something that happens at the end of the series,
but a state that persists throughout the series of movements and their
learning, (b) A drive sets into incipient performance the final move-
ment necessary to relieve it, the consummatory reaction. (c) The tend-
ency of one movement to excite another, while exerted most strongly
towards a following movement, exists also, though to a less degree, to-
wards a movement immediately preceding; of this we have evidence from
experiments on animals. Thus when a drive has set in readiness its con-
summatory reaction, this readiness may be communicated to the reaction
just preceding. There would then exist on this hypothesis a "gradient" of
readiness to be excited, decreasing with the distance of a movement from
the consummatory movement. (d) The dropping-out of errors during
the learning of a successive movement system would be a case of substi-
tutive learning, the right movements having prepotence through their
greater nearness to the consummatory reaction (12, pp. 329-337).
Evidently on this theory the latter half of the maze path would be
learned first. Borovski (2), in the only investigation which adequately
guards against sources of error, has shown that such is actually the case.
The motor theory would explain the formation of simultaneous move-
ment systems also through the influence of the drive. In cases like the
combination of leg and arm movements in swimming, the two sets of
movements get equal readiness through being equally distant from the
|,, MARGARET FLOY WASHBURN 87
consummatory response, forward translation through the water, which will
occur only when they are performed together.
X. The Motor Basis of Ideas: Tentative Movements
The "association of ideas" is fundamentally the association of move-
ments; the movements in this case, however, are not full but incipient
muscular contractions.
The most important evidence for this statement is perhaps the fact that
two conscious processes do not become associated, so that one of them
will later recall the idea of another, unless they have been not merely
experienced together but attended to together. If we wish to associate a
person's name with his face, we react to the two impressions simultaneously ;
we repeat the name and scan the face. At the outset of this paper it was
assumed on good evidence that consciousness accompanies a partial but not
total checking of motor response. Attentive consciousness is the highest
degree of consciousness. The delay due to the partial inhibition of re-
sponse is filled, on the one hand, by adjustments of the sense-organ so that
the stimulus will be better received, and, on the other hand, by slight,
"tentative" contractions, or at least alterations in the physiological state
of the muscles whose full action is being checked. These incipient con-
tractions may quite conceivably give rise to kinaesthetic excitations; they
may have varying degrees of readiness or prepotency, giving rise to sub-
stitutive learning, and they may form static systems and simultaneous and
successive phasic systems. Such, at least, is the hypothesis involved in
motor psycholog5^ Spinoza said, "The order and connection of things is
the order and connection of ideas"; we may paraphrase this by asserting
that the order and connection of ideas is the order and connection of
movements. The nervous basis of an idea, a "centrally excited" con-
scious process, is a tentative movement, which originally occurred during
attention to an external stimulus, and is revived through the occurrence
of other tentative movements that became organized with it into a system
(9, chaps. 3, 4).
XL The Motor Basis of Perception
The theory we are developing means, obviously, that when two stimuli
are consciously discriminated from each other, it is because a different re-
action is made, fully or tentatively, to each. Up to this point the theory
has seemed like a synthetic one, in which systems are built up out of units.
But such is not the case. Our discriminations are analyses. In the
author's Movement and Mental Imagery j the theory of perception is stated
in a passage that may be quoted here: "In first making acquaintance with
an object we respond to it as an undifferentiated whole: later we come
to make specialized responses to various parts and aspects of it; but it
is the fact that it can be still responded to as a whole that keeps these
specialized movements together in a single system, and thus gives the
object its unity. An orange, or a chair, or a tree, is a single object, and not
a mere aggregate of qualities and parts, because it can be reacted to as a
88 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
whole, and because every one of the movements involved in attending to
its parts is associated with the movement of reacting to the whole object"
(9, pp. 130-131). Upon the nature of the motor response depends the
analysis of our total conscious state into perceptions of objects. Thus
upon the possession of a movable sense-organ depends to a considerable
extent an animal's power of space perception ; a movable sense-organ can
analyze a situation into a reversible series of sensations, which is the essen-
tial characteristic of a spatial pattern. A movable grasping organ, which
can detach "things" from their surroundings and move them about inde-
pendently of one another, aids analysis into a world of objects rather than
flat patterns. Motor psychology can explain the facts of perception which
the configurationist merely describes. Take, for instance, the phenomena
of ambiguous figures, such as the outline cube, which may be perceived
either as lying on the ground or suspended in the air; what the configura-
tionists would call the more natural configuration is the former, but surely
it is more natural because the reaction of sitting down on cubes occurs
oftener than that of looking up at them. One part of a visual field be-
comes "figure" and the rest "ground" if it seems easier to pick up than
the rest; thus a small pattern becomes "figure" on a large background.
In illusions, the principle of assimilation, whereby a circle appears larger
when it is concentric with a larger circle and smaller when it is concen-
tric with a smaller circle, seems to conflict with the principle of contrast,
whereby a circle when surrounded by larger circles looks smaller than
when surrounded by smaller circles. Motor psychology can explain this
conflict by pointing out that assimilation will occur when the design
suggests reaction to the whole of it at once : one circle inside or outside
of another looks like a plate, a single object, all parts of which tend to
take on the character of the whole. Contrast, on the other hand, will
occur when the parts of the design are so arranged in space as to suggest
reacting to them separately; v\^hen, for instance, a circle is surrounded by'
other circles. Again, the configurationists describe the ways in which'
configurations may interfere with and modify one another: the motor
theory would explain this interference as due to the presence of incom-'
patible reaction movements and the modifications as due to the elimination
of such movements. We cannot, for example, perceive the cube at once
as resting on the ground and as suspended in the air, because we cannot
at once look down and up (13). 1
XII. Relational Processes '^
The configurationist or Gestalt school of psychology grew out of a
structural study of thought, and one of its chief claims is that it gives
proper recognition to those conscious processes which arise out of the
"togetherness" of others, that is, the Gestalt or form qualities, which
may remain the same even though the contexts from which they arise
differ. It is probably true that in many such cases the actual stimulus
is a process of change rather than a persisting force. The writer once
trained a rabbit which had shown in previous experiments that it saw
i
MARGARET FLOY WASHBURN 89
red as very dark gray to push at a red door instead of at a light gray
door; this training resulted in its pushing the gray door only 24% of
the time. When the same gray was shown on one door and white on the
other, the rabbit pushed at the gray door 73% of the time; thus the same
gray produced opposite responses in the two settings. The actual stimu-
lus was probably not "gray," but "darkening" (12, pp. 241-242).
Other "relational" processes, however, which occur in thinking may be
explained as kinaesthetic, due to movements or attitudes that are common
to different situations. For example, the relational feeling of difference
might be due to a kinaesthetic excitation accompanying any sudden shift
of motor response ; that of unfamiliarity to an attitude accompanying sus-
pension of the motor processes accompanying associative activity; that of
recognition to the relaxation of the unfamiliarity attitude; that of opposi-
tion (the feeling of "but," as James termed it) to suspended reaction
when there exist tendencies of equal strength towards incompatible move-
ments. What Ebbinghaus called the "common properties" of sensations,
for instance, intensity and duration, would on this theory have a kinaes-
thetic basis. If the loudness of a sound has something in common with
the hardness of a pressure, the basis of this common element is likely to be
kinaesthetic. To quote from Movement and Mental Imagery (9, pp.
205-206) : "Our absolute judgments of high degrees of intensity are
probably based on the degree of diffusion of the stimulus energy through
the motor pathways of the body. We can by introspection describe the
attitude characteristic of high intensity as a kind of general muscular
shrinking, which is at the same time a withdrawal and a summons of the
muscular forces of the body to endurance, and we can more or less localize
the kinaesthetic and organic excitations thus produced. In the case of
absolute judgments of very slight intensity, another attitude is apt to be
the basis of the judgment: a generalized muscular response, namely, which
is not the result of the overflow of stimulus energy, but rather due to the
strain that accompanies the effort to attend and to prevent distraction
which will cause the stimulus to lose its effectiveness." Judgments of
duration Wundt based on feelings of strain and relaxation, which are
obviously kinaesthetic, and all spatial judgments can plausibly be referred
to a kinaesthetic basis.
Two considerations strengthen the case for kinaesthesis as the source
of those relational processes which are essentially the same no matter
what the quality of the sensations they accompany, and which arise out
of the "configuration" itself. First, when they occur in the course of
perception and thinking, we need not be surprised that ordinary intro-
spection does not identify them as coming from muscles; kinaesthetic pro-
cesses ordinarily go unanalyzed and unlocalized because there is no such
necessity to analyze them as to analyze sensory processes originating in the
outside world. Secondly, it is obvious that kinaesthetic excitations are con-
stantly present, a continuous common factor in all our experience (9, chap.
10).
90 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
XIII. The Motor Basis of Thinking
The processes involved in thinking are: (a) simultaneous and successive
systems of tentative movements, and (b) an inner muscular tension on
which is based the persistent influence of the problem idea or purpose.
(a) We have already made the assumption that ideas accompany in-
cipient or tentative muscular contractions, and that such tentative move-
ments form systems, static and phasic, simultaneous and successive. The
function of simultaneous systems of tentative movements in thinking needs
a little further attention, because the objection is sometimes made against a
motor theory that the rapid and complex processes of thought vv^ould on
such a theory demand an impossibly great complication of muscular ac-
tion. But a simultaneous movement system, as w^e have just seen in
discussing the perception of objects, is usually one that involved at first
a single undifferentiated motor response, and it is these responses to the
experience as a whole that help to preserve its unity even after analysis has
taken place. The idea of a complex thing or system of things could not
be dealt with in thinking unless a "symbol" of it could be used, that is, a
relatively simple representative ; on any theory of the nature of thought it is
necessary that a relatively simple symbol should be capable of calling up
the associations that belong to complex systems of ideas. This, of course,
is why language is essential to thought. If we consider how comparatively
few are the component movements involved in speech, and yet how ade-,
quately they represent the immense complexities of thinking, we see that
"there is almost no limit to the complexity of the system combinations
which can be formed through having a single motor outlet for an entire
combination" (9, p. 132).
(b) What is the difference between reverie and thinking with a'
purpose? Introspectively, the chief difference between an ordinary idea
and a purpose is that an ordinary idea has only a temporary relation to the
ideas that follow it (in reverie one idea "suggests" the next, and there its
influence ends), while an idea that constitutes a purpose seems to domi-
nate many succeeding ideas until the purpose is executed. One and the
same idea may either make a fleeting appearance, as when we say idly to
ourselves that we might do so and so, or it may become a purpose held to
for years, as when we resolve to do so and so and follow through a com-
plicated series of actions before the resolve can be carried into full per-
formance.
Under what circumstances will an ordinary idea become a purpose?
The facts of purposive thought and behavior have for some thinkers
given strong support to vitalism, or the doctrine that there are forces in
living beings which cannot be reduced, whatever the progress of physical
science, to combinations of those laws which work in the field of inanimate
nature. Wherever an animal's action is adapted to an end, according to
this school of purposive, vitalistic psychology, foreknowledge of the end
operates to cause the action by a type of causality differing from that of
the physical world. The system of motor psychology which the present
MARGARET FLOY WASHBURN 91
paper defends is opposed to such a view for several reasons. First, because
of the general advantage of a mechanistic position, as set forth at the
beginning of our discussion. Secondly, because the sharp distinction dravs^n,
for example, by Professor McDougall (7, pp. 5 Iff.) between reflex and
instinctive action, the former being purely mechanical and the latter in-
volving the mysterious power of purpose, is untenable. Thirdly, because
the irregularities in the way animals perform instinctive actions look much
more like machinery out of order than like errors in carrying out a con-
scious purpose. Fourthly, because the only way one can explain the first
performance of a complex instinctive action such as nest-building, on the
purposive hypothesis, is to suppose that the bird inherits a mental image
of the nest, a supposition that contradicts what we know of inheritance
A mechanistic explanation of purposive thought and action therefore
is needed. The physiological basis of a purpose must be a relatively per-
manent state rather than a fleeting movement, since the difference between
a purpose and an ordinary idea lies in the persistent influence of the former
(to be mechanistically accurate, of its physiological basis). Among our
bodily processes there are two types of relatively permanent states: drives
or conditions of inner unrest, and attitudes or static movement systems.
Evidently, if an idea is to become a purpose, the tentative movement that
is the basis of the idea must be connected with a drive. Purposes rest on
motives. There must be a drive, and it must be prevented from reaching
its consummatory movement at once. Now when a drive is checked, we
have seen that its energy may be expended in several ways. It may pro-
duce an emotion, in which case the energy either passes off in non-adaptive
movements of the striped muscles, that is, in a motor explosion, pacing the
floor, abusing the furniture, and making language reactions of a type
ordinarily inhibited, or expends itself in visceral disturbances. On the
other hand, the drive may produce ordered, purposeful thought and action,
leading to its consummatory movements.
"If we watch a man who, when he cannot get relief from a drive by
immediate action, begins to think the matter out, we observe that he be-
comes quiet. If we are that man, introspection tells us that our quiet
is not the quiet of relaxation but that of bodily tenseness, especially in the
trunk muscles. Whenever this attitude relaxes, the energy of the drive
begins again to escape in random movements ; we stop thinking and become
restless. For all purposive action there must be a persistent inner
state of imbalance, the drive. For purposive thinking, we may conjec-
ture that this state must discharge its energy not into immediate action,
whether useful movements or merely random restlessness, but into a
quiet, tense bodily attitude. And any idea may become a purpose if, being
first associated with a drive, it becomes associated with this peculiar, per-
sistent attitude of tense quietness" (15).
The evidence in favor of this "attitude" theory of the physiological basis
of purposive thinking is as follows: (a) the persistent influence of a pur-
pose demands a persistent bodily process as its foundation; {b) introspec-
92 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
tion shows that this process involves muscular tension; (c) the experiments
of Jacobson and Bills (5, 1) show^ that thought is impossible in a state of
complete muscular relaxation. As regards (b), it should be noted that a
blocking of the thought process often increases* the intensity of this tension
so that it overflows like emotion into useless muscular contractions, frown-
ing, setting the teeth, and so forth ; thus the proper function of the thought
attitude is lost.
Incidentally, the motor theory explains how emotion interferes with
thought, by using the principle that explains all interferences in behavior
and consciousness, that of incompatible movements. Emotion interferes
with thought when its energy passes into diffused random movements, the
"motor explosion" ; such movements are likely to be incompatible both
with the tentative movements demanded in thinking and with the thought
attitude (14).
It is interesting to speculate about the ancestry of the thought attitude.
An important factor in animal learning seems to be the capacity to main-
tain a general bodily orientation towards the goal, for example, both in
maze running and in the delayed-reaction type of experiment. In the
maze there is a tendency to check errors made away from the general
direction of the goal sooner than those in its direction, though the actual
delay in reaching the goal is the same for both types. A striking analogy
exists between this orientation and the "activity" or thought attitude; the
essential function of both is to check movements either of one type or of an
antagonistic type if they deviate too far. In an address before the psy-
chological section of the Arnerican Association for the Advancement of
Science I suggested a conceivable relation between them in the following
words. "In the beginning, while the reflex and tropism were adequate
modes of behavior, the drive discharged in a definite direction. As the
environment became more complex, the drive discharged into random move-
ments of which those associated with the drive in its last and most in-
tense stages tended to survive and become organized into systems. In
this process the drive secured the persistence needed for purposive action,
but the definite direction of the tropism was lost. Often, however, in
animals, part of the energy of the drive goes into the tendency to main-
tain and restore a bodily orientation toward the goal; while in man, for
whose varied activities general bodily orientation is too confining, directed
thinking is sustained by a vestige of this bodily orientation, the tense quiet-
ness of the trunk muscles that may persist even when we turn from one
position to another" (15).
The problem of orientation in space, that is, of learning the way to a
goal, is perhaps the earliest problem in learning that animals encountered
in the course of evolution. Other complex systems of movement neces-
sary to animal existence, such as those of attacking food, of mating, and
nest-building, are largely innate; finding the way back to food or the nest
must be learned. Some general mechanism to assist this learning process
may well have been early developed, and may in some degree survive as
the basis of our path-finding to a thought goal (16).
MARGARET FLOY WASHBURN 93
Summary of the Relation of Motor Psychology to Other
Psychologies
1) Behaviorism. The sj'stem of psychology here presented agrees
with behaviorism in being mechanistic, and its explanatory principles are
all in harmony with behaviorism. It differs from behaviorism in being
based on a dualistic metaphysics instead of on materialistic monism, vv^hich
is indefensible, and in therefore regarding the descriptive study of mental
processes as possible and v^^orth w^hile.
2) Structural Psychology. The system agrees w^ith structural psy-
chology in being dualistic, and v^^ith both structural and behavioristic psy-
chology in being mechanistic, that is, in holding that there is no causal action
of mental processes upon bodily processes, the causal action being that of
the nervous processes underlying the mental processes. It differs from
structural psychology in using the laws of bodily movement as its central
explanatory principles, and in being less interested in the minute and de-
tailed description of mental processes and more interested in the description
and explanation of behavior, since in behavior it finds the explanation of
conscious experience.
3) Functional Psychology. The system agrees with functional psy-
chology in its motor principles of explanation, but differs from it in re-
jecting the interactionism which the functional psychologists have often im-
plied. In general, it is closer to functional psychology than to any other
school, but attempts to carry functional explanations further.
4) Gestalt Psychology. The system agrees with the configurationists
as with the structuralists in holding the description and analysis of men-
tal processes to be legitimate and desirable; it differs from the configura-
tionists in presenting a far more adequate principle of explanation.
5) Purposive Psychology. The system is fundamentally and totally
opposed to the non-mechanistic type of psychology which regards con-
scious purposes as causal forces acting upon bodily movements and repre-
senting a type of causality wholly different from that which prevails in
the physical world.
Our knowledge of the working of the central nervous system is still
very imperfect indeed, and any physiological hypothesis undertaking to
explain the complexities of consciousness and behavior is likely to suffer
drastic modifications, if not to be wholly abandoned, with the progress of
such knowledge. The strongest element in the system here presented
seems to me the principle of incompatible movements. Every theory needs
most of all a way of demonstrating the impossibility of certain occurrences.
There is only one surely impossible phenomenon in the universe, if we ex-
cept merely logical inconsistencies, and that is the movement of a body in
opposite directions at the same time with reference to the same points.
If we can base our explanation of psychological phenomena on this prin-
ciple, we have given psychology a sure foundation and placed it on a par
with the physical sciences. The soundness of a motor theory is further
suggested by the evidence that the evolution of the nervous system in ani-
mals began with the effector organs.
94 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
REFERENCES
1. Bills, A. G. The influence of muscular tension on the efficiency of mental
work. Amer. J. Psychol., 1927, 38, 227-251.
2. BoROVSKi, V. M. Experimentelle Untersuchungen iiber den Lernprozess,
Zsch. f. verg. Physiol., 1927, 6, 489-529.
3. Cannon, W. B. Bodily changes in pain, hunger, fear, and rage. New
York: Appleton, 1915. Pp. xiii+311.
4. Craig, W. Appetites and aversions as constituents of instincts. Proc. Nat,
Acad. Sci., 1917, 3, 685-688.
5. Jacobson, E. Progressive relaxation. Amer. J. Psychol., 1925, 36, 73-87.
6. Lashley, K. S., & Ball, J. Spinal conduction and kinaesthetic sensitivity in
the maze habit. J. Comp. Psychol, 1929, 9, 71-106.
7. McDougall, W. Outline of psychology. New York: Scribner's, 1923. Pp.
xvi-+-456.
8. Munsterberg, H. Grundziige der Psychologic. I. Allgemeiner Teil: Die
Principien der Psychologie. Leipzig: Barth, 1900. Pp. xii-|-565.
9. Washburn, M. F. Movement and mental imagery. Boston: Houghton
Mifliin, 1916. Pp. xv-|-252.
10. . Dr. Strong and qualitative differences. Phil. Rev., 1919, 28,
613-619.
11. . Introspection as an objective method. Psychol. Rev., 1922, 29,
89-112.
12. . The animal mind. (3rd. ed.) New York: Macmillan, 1926.
Pp. xiii-f431.
13. . Gestalt psychology and motor psychology. Amer. J. Psychol.,
1926, 37, 516-520.
14. . Emotion and thought: a motor theory of their relations. Chap.
7 in Feelings and Emotions. Worcester, Mass.: Clark Univ. Press, 1928.
Pp. 104-115.
15. . Purposive action. Science, 1928, 67, 24-28.
16. . Orientation and purpose. Read before Ninth International
Congress of Psychology, Yale University, Sept. 3, 1929.
M\
CHAPTER 5
A PSYCHOLOGY FOR PSYCHOLOGISTS
Madison Bentley
Cornell University
Many are the directions from which the Psychologies of 1930 may be
approached; but the most obvious ways are two. One would reveal the
general state of progress in psychology's major undertakings, and the other
would set forth the individual writer's particular point of view. The
first, which appears most attractive, would present a cross-section of the
entire subject with references to the past and to the future, omitting bias,
systematic differences, and the rivalry of schools. But this mode of ap-
proach is practically impossible for any single psychologist within the
assigned limits and, moreover, it appears to be the second mode which
accords with the design of the present series. So we add one more pho-
tographic presentation of our common array of psychological facts and
objects, leaving the unfortunate reader to create his own clear perspective
out of many limited and divergent views.
Our main and underlying contention will be that the present confusion
of tongues, now widely deplored, is chiefly due to the fact that outside
concerns and foreign interests have played too great a part in shaping and
defining our field. The result is that we tend artificially to maintain our
identity by virtue of the common label "psychology." Really psychologi-
cal points of view and interests have been made secondary to evolutionism,
the doctrine of heredity, zoological classifications, animal hierarchies, physi-
ological and neurological hypotheses, clinical medicine, psychiatry, theory
of knowledge, the training of infants, educational doctrines, sociology, an-
thropology, propaganda for "efficiency," and amateurish conceits about
"human nature." Were you to hold to the light any one of the many
proposals for a "new psychology" and to look steadily through it, you
would almost certainly see the obscuring shadow of one or another of the
extra-psychological subjects named in this long list. And the main reason
why so many persons are now ambitious to wear the badge and to speak a
dialect of psychology is that practically all men can thereby serve some
extraneous interest. A few terms borrowed from one of these outside
sources — such terms as conditioning, instinct and habit, mental evolution,
original nature, reflexes, learning, the unconscious, introversion, inferiority,
intelligence, social responses, primitive man, and achievement test — are
enough to give an air of scientific sophistication and to suggest the epithet
"psychologist." But practically all such terms are imports from without.
In so far as they are assimilated at all they are assimilated not to psychology
but to that particular brand of the subject which has derived from, and
[95]
96 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
has been fashioned to serve, the context which the given term implies.
It is inevitable, therefore, that we should now possess multiple psychologies
reducible to no common denominator; psychologies pluralized not in the
sense of many envisagements of one and the same universe of facts and
principles but in the sense of a common name for many diverse and diver-
gent undertakings.
Now the present chief determiners of psychology from the outside are
three. They are biology, medicine, and education. Determination from
biology is readily understood from the prestige and success of that subject
since Darwin and Johannes Miiller, as well as from the natural associa-
tion of psychological facts with the "organism" of the biologist. Medi-
cine comes in directly from our romantic and humanistic concern for the
sick and indirectly from that large branch of sociology which treats of the
study and care of the aberrant, the abnormal, and the defective. The
medical psychology of the French and the Austrians must also be con-
sidered. The deep impress of such cults and practices as Freudism
suggests the weight of medical sanctions, though the natural allurements
of sex and advertising have likewise played their part. Education, finally,
has now come to be one of the primary responsibilities and diversions of
America and Europe. Interest there has tended toward doctrine, means,
and measurement. America at least extols great theorists (not always
waiting to understand them), grasps eagerly at new methods, builds and
equips lavishly, and diligently applies its measuring stick. The problem
of producing wise, intelligent, and cultivated teachers and parents still
awaits solution. Meanwhile the educational men and means have been
advertised as highly "psychological." Theorists and doctrines are psy-
chological, methods are chosen for their psychological flavor, and educa-
tional measurements are phrased in terms of "intelligence" and other
alleged psychological faculties.
Of these three great determining influences (philosophy has definitely
fallen into the background), one is mainly from the sciences and two
come from the arts of practice, the first art designed to keep men sane
and well and the second to see them through their first two or immature
decades. Biology has mainly injected physical, physiological, and specu-
lative matters into psychology; medicine has warped it toward the abnor-
mal; and education has substituted both the pedagogist's notion of an im-
perfect childhood and the moralist's notion of responsibility for an inde-
pendent and disinterested account of psychological development.
Is it possible, now, to restore psychology to a better balance to make
it more fundamentally psychological and less accessory to other things?
My general proposal, which was briefly and imperfectly sketched in
the Psychologies of 1925 (1), may be restated in a word. The sciences
which deal with living things as living comprise two coordinate groups,
the biological and the psychological. Neither is logically subordinate to
the other; though each presents facts which exhibit a functional (possibly
a causal) dependence upon facts in the other group. Living beings are
MADISON BENTLEY 97
also treated in physics, chemistry, and geology, but not there characteris-
tically as living}
The equitable partition of work as between biology (taken here as a
brief designation for all the subjects in the group comprising anatomy,
physiology, ecology, morphology, genetics, and the like) and psychology is
our first concern. It has been made very difficult by the temporal priority
and development of the biological group, which long regarded itself as
the totality of the sciences of life. When, finally, psychology came into
its field of regard, biology assumed a paternal attitude and (not without a
scowl of annoyance) adopted the newcomer into the great biological
family. This accident of time and priority should suggest to us, however,
an attitude of utter neutrality, devoid of tradition and prepossession.
Under such an attitude the general delegation of labors and problems will
be simple in principle, whatever difficulties we may later encounter in
drawing exact lines of demarcation.
To begin with, then, both coordinate groups treat of the living organism.
If we take seriously this primary fact, we shall escape at the beginning
endless discussions about two ultimately unlike substances, the physical and
the mental, about ultimate relations as caused or uncaused, about pre-
established harmonies and interacting disparates. All our traditions per-
suade us toward these terrible distinctions; but let us not be persuaded.^
Let us rather consider the living organism first of all in its integrity. Be-
fore we have allotted it for treatment by the sciences, let us steadfastly
disregard our philosophical and scientific traditions and take it quite neu-
trally as the living being which each of us actually is and of the sort that
we actually and constantly live with and communicate with in our fellow-
men. This entire and pre-allotted being we may designate as the T-sys-
tem, to denote its total character before its description has been assigned
in the two directions. We might also call it the neutral organism (On)
to denote its neutrality so far as future work upon it by the sciences is
concerned. Our view of it at the moment is then quite unsophisticated,
inasmuch as it has not yet been referred for scrutiny and judgment either
to the sciences or to the philosophical disciplines. If we are able to for-
get the biological limitations set upon the word organism^ we may say
quite freely that the T-system is the organism. But we must not here
substitute for our "organism" the anatomist's abstraction of a bodily struc-
ture, the taxonomist's abstraction of a kind or class, or the psychologist's
abstraction of a "mental" or "conscious" being. It is, instead, the total
system or the neutral organism, neither biologized nor psychologized, with
*Some biologists prefer to be called physicists and chemists, and a few psycholo-
gists contend that their materials are likewise reducible to physical ultimates ;
but no complete and adequate account has been so written upon either side.
^Readers who are still troubled by these ancient dichotomies may profitably read
candid treatments of them in B. H. Bode (2, Chaps. 1-7) and in G. T. W. Patrick
(3, Chaps. 1-4). For his own educational purposes Bode modifies behaviorism
in the direction of a "pragmatic psychology" and Patrick stresses "self-adjust-
ment." Both retain the biological pattern of treatment but compound it with the
philosophical.
98 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
which we begin and to which we shall have often to return. It eats,
sleeps, works, worries, and digests. It wears our clothes, is a member of
the family, has a savings account, and tries to obey the laws of the state.
We are now ready to make our first deflection toward the two types
of inquiry, as we approach with our T-system. It is to be a functional
deflection. That is to say, instead of cleaving our T-system straight
through the middle and handing a physical half to the one science and a
mental half to the other, we keep our organism (On) intact; but we invite
biology (B-science) to inspect certain of its functions and psychology
(P-science) certain others. Our primary separation, therefore, refers to
a way of regarding, a point of view, and not to a partition of the object
regarded. Thus our primary category of life becomes function, not sub-
strate or material. The primary task of the sciences of life will then be
directed toward description in terms of operation or activity.
The next critical problem is to discover modes of operation which are
sufficiently diverse and sufficiently characteristic to sanction the proposed
coordination. These we shall discuss as the B-functions and the P-func-
tions, according as they fall to the one or to the other science. The
B-functions concern metabolism and the relations of metabolism to outside
energies and events. They also include the dependence of internal opera-
tions upon such accessory means as enzymes and regulators, as well as an
account of devices for aerating, circulating, conducting, and eliminating.
The P-functions include those operations by way of which the living or-
ganism apprehends its surroundings, recognizes and acts upon its varied
relations to other organisms, to objects and to events, constructs a present,
past, and future, deals with objects and occurrences as absent, supposed,
or unreal, discerns its own ends, and devises means for their satisfaction.
These functions also include those operations through which it wishes,
desires, plans, and executes, is thrown into doubt, perplexity, and predica-
ment, creates and uses language and other symbols, organizes systems of
belief and of knowledge, and formulates canons of taste and of conduct.
All of these things the living organism (at least the adult, human or-
ganism) actually and inevitably does, and with no one of them is biology
prepared to treat either in fact or in theory.
At this point the reader is ready to interpose a difficult question. "Can
you not" — he will ask — "positively qualify the two sorts of operation so
that they may be logically partitioned to the two sciences?" He is prob-
ably thinking of "bodily" and "conscious." If he is, we shall have to
ignore for the present the natural query because such a division would
precipitate us at once into our old disturbing difficulty. There ase at
least three separate reasons why the P-functions should not be qualified
as "conscious." The first is that the term is substantive and so divides the
organism itself and not its activities; the second is that it adds nothing
but a dubious theory to our designation; and the third is that these func-
tions are not properly described as non-bodily (i.e., conscious) since the
body is implied in them quite as much and quite as fundamentally as it is
in the B-functions. Let us then rest for the present with our functional
MADISON BENTLEY 99
distinction and with our gross indication of the kind of operation falling
under each of the two varieties.
Here we face our second principal difficulty. Function always implies
a medium. Operations do not proceed in a vacuum. The common
phrase is that "function implies structure." It thus appears necessary to
add means and agencies. The old temptation to dichotomize again assails
us, to speak of vital (or physical) forces and of mental faculties or agents.
But this solution is as sterile as the distinction of substances.
The difficulty is very real. It raises the acute problem of a distinctive
subject-matter for psychology. That biology has a like problem is ap-
parent from the ancient contentions of vitalist and mechanist and from
the more modern version of the problem in the alleged reducibility of the
sciences of life to physicochemistry. But we may well limit ourselves to
our own difficulties. Were we content to adopt the easy and obvious
device of the behaviorist we should simply declare that the whole problem
is one of adaptive response. Then we should be right back in the old
speculative biology of adaptation. But that is not the most serious issue
of such an acquiescence. We should have to admit either that the P-func-
tions just enumerated do not exist or that we propose to ignore them.
The more consistent behaviorists have taken the second course and have
come out with a partial and inadequate account of the organism. The
others have retained their old "consciousness" or its equivalent and have
simply echoed the phraseology of adaptation. Neither removes the diffi-
culties which beset us and at the same time leaves to us the means for
solving, or so much as stating, the main problems of psychology.
The "conscious" psychologists have here a distinct advantage. They
have only to declare that they deal with conscious stuff which they observe
by the special method of introspection. History has made it apparent
that it is very difficult to dislodge a psychologist from this position. Scorn,
irony, and boycott have all been used by the dissenters, who have pro-
ceeded either to ignore this alleged aspect of the organism or to deny its
existence. The result has been a complete lapse into biology, whence the
dissenters themselves ultimately came. But the positive limitations of
this lapse are very great, as a rough list of the gaps and omissions of the
behavioristic books and researches will readily persuade the candid reader.
The structuralist avoids the difficulty by an analogy with anatomical
matters. The psychological equivalents of the cells are — for him — sen-
sations, feelings, thought elements, and conations, and the equivalents of
the tissues are assimilations, fusions, colligations, perceptions, associations,
etc. This figure of speech went as far as the "elements" and very greatly
helped to derive psychological parallels for the receptor functions; it also
helped to indicate a certain qualitative range and variety in our experiences.
Here the analogy stuck. By many it has been abandoned or at least modi-
fied in its perspective.
Still another way out was the way of the fluidist, who used the Hera-
klitean analogy of the stream. We think of James first and of Wundt
secondly. This analogy served to break up the rigider and more barren
types of associationism. In James the stream ultimately evaporated into
100 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
a vague directional drift through a certain locus in the restless world of
existence. Wundt's fluid "immediate experience" led on to the later
structuralism and also, in another direction, toward the developmental
currents of Volkerpsychologie.
The fourth great proposal of a way out of conscious stuff has been
offered by Gestalttheorie. Here substance becomes a shadow to be so
far as possible ignored, and form becomes the psychological substitute for
it. This is the psychology of the twilight where figured shadows are
fascinating and solid things unreal. The words "consciousness" and "men-
tal" still linger; but they are little more than a facon de parler. Form
moves upon matter as a sort of unifying faculty, notes fall into their pre-
destined places, and the Gestalt proceeds to perfect itself. The best fruits
of this conception, thus far obtained, have ripened in the laboratory. The
doctrine sometimes enlightens the experimental results, which are, how-
ever, easily restated under other and less mystical captions. Once again,
shape and configuration are partial categories, which have entered from
physics, aesthetics, and ontology, and which scarcely seem adapted to the
general needs of psychology. Much of their momentum has been derived
from protest against the imaginary devotion of all the other psychological
parties to atomistic realities. Like all protestant movements, it tends to
weaken as it exaggerates its own negative virtues in contrast to its oppo-
nents' positive vices.
We return unsatisfied from all these proposals to the difficult medium
of the P-functions. For a positive answer let us go again to our original
and undisturbed T-system, our living creature, our neutral organism.
And let us observe that whereas this On is double-faced when we attempt
to functionalize it, it is singly determined when we look at it as medium
or ground of operation. As seen from any point of view it displays but
one stuff. We call it "body." This body must then be used as vehicle.
The B-functions and the P-functions are both referable (wherever refer-
ence is necessary) to the body. Only biology, then, has an anatomy and
only biology has a morphology, and in so far as embryology is strictly
morphological and structural it is to be found in the biological group of
sciences alone. Psychology stands in need of no separate doctrine of
"structures."
For the common coloring of all the B-functions we have the fortunate
qualifier "physiological." On the psychological side we are not so fortu-
nate. Were we careful to eliminate all reference to an existential mind,
we might say that the P-functions are all alike "experiential." In order
to take away the bad flavor of "experience," suppose that we provisionally
refer to the common ("experiential") qualification of all matters of desir-
ing, thrilling, perceiving, remembering, discovering, and the like, by the
symbol Cg. Then we can say for the present that all P-functions have
the coloring Ce, as we should say that all B-functions have the common
physiological coloring Cp.
We are not yet out of the woods. "It is all very well," you may object,
"to eliminate the conscious as a form of existence. But what are you go-
ing to do about images and creative thinking and feelings of effort and of
MADISON BENTLEY 101
pain, about love and hate, imagination, seeing and hearing and all the
rest — things which are, as everybody knows, mental V At this point it
is difficult not to envy the behaviorist who can expunge all these cobwebs
of fancy by a fiat and declare that nothing exists but responses to the
environment.
Now there is a very good reason why men have stuck so tenaciously to
existential terms in their psychology. The matters which we have enum-
erated as P-f unctions do happen; and we neither describe, understand, nor
get rid of them when we attach the label "response." We must be more
candid.
Let us scrutinize some of these things that are said necessarily to imply
a kind of existence which is not of the bodily kind and which certainly
is not illuminated by the biological category of environment. In the first
place, many of the things are just terms descriptive of performance. I
see the car passing the window and I hear the whistle of the distant loco-
motive ; but that is not to say that the hearing and the seeing are fabricated
from something conscious. The plain facts are "car," "whistle," and
some kind of functional relation to an organism. In our terms, the
T-system has been active in the form of a P-function. The old theory of
conscious doubles or copies need no longer be discussed. To be sure, we
cannot exhaust the matter of seeing and hearing by a reference to the car
and the distant locomotive alone; but that is not to say that we must
assume in addition to these things a mind which sees and hears or so much
as a seeing and hearing consciousness. Neither does the biologist exhaust
the matter by referring to certain B-functions in ear and eye, nerve and
brain, nor by an interpretation in terms of response to stimulus. The
central fact of seeing and hearing, or, stated more generally, of perceiving,
is a psychological fact; but it is essentially a functional fact. Car and
whistle are, so to say, being announced to the T-system.
A special difficulty seems to arise in perception when some state or con-
dition of the T-system itself replaces the perceived "object." But in
principle and so far as the operative side of the system is concerned, no
difference exists between the apprehension of extended objects, of the slow
passage of time, of flashing movement, of melody, or of the substance and
condition of the body. Some objects are apprehended as existing by them-
selves (trees, buildings, chemical compounds), some as existing only for
the T-system (rhythms and musical objects), and some again as the appre-
hending system itself.
The final resort of the mentalist is sheer pain. There we have — so
the argument runs — something ultimately different from all "objects."
But the underlying logic here reads, "Not physical, therefore mental."
And that logic is not inevitable. It is a relic of the dogmatic ontologies of
the dualist. We may reasonably challenge the inference.
As a matter of hard fact, when man was added to the world the world
was notably changed. We need not go so far as the brilliant Bishop of
Cloyne in the exaltation of a single P-function and say that the esse of the
world resides in percipi. We need not resort to any idealistic faith with
regard to being or knowing. We simply observe that many things change
102 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
their characters when they are related to the human T-system. The fact
that I see the car, hear the whistle, desire the food, plan to prepare din-
ner, or discover an enemy in Neighbor X, is not exhaustively and ade-
quately treated by describing car, whistle, the empty stomach, dinner, and
neighbor. In plain terms, the P-functions have consequences quite as
definitely as the B-functions of breathing, digesting, and secreting. And
these consequences have to be taken into account. Regarded in a gross
way we may say that cities and railroads are such consequences; laws,
customs, and beliefs are others, and organized states still others. Even
to the galactic universe, as we imperfectly comprehend it, clings the aroma
of that peculiar and unique creature for which alone, of all living crea-
tures, the universe "exists." It is certain that we cannot derive these
things from the B-functions, even when we include in the latter such spa-
tial results as flow from the movement of parts and members of the body
in the form of "reactions."
The sciences have without question progressed in their descriptions of
nature by regarding the organism {O^) as actively related to an environ-
ment (a phase of B-f unction) ; but this logical addition is not sufficient.
The P-functions and their consequences carry us far beyond the environ-
mental concept. A very simple instance should make this fact apparent.
By night I lie quietly in the darkness and "see" the book shelves of a study
which was destroyed yesterday by fire. Here the biological relation of
organism and environment breaks down. The organism has somehow
absorbed the environment so that the latter exists only, so to phrase it, at
the organism, i.e., not at all. It is a crude makeshift which puts such
things in a mental or social or inner environment. The object is not in
the organism and it is not outside, either in a spatial or a biological sense.
The biologist's relation as of an interaction between a B-system and an
environing E-system has simply disappeared. In its present form, the ob-
servation cited belongs only to psychology, and psychology shifts its re-
sponsibility when it lazily labels such objects "mental."
We must go further. The concept of the environment has no place in
psychology. It is the biologist's way of conceiving a functional relation
between his B-system and certain non-organic systems and agencies. The
P-functions transcend it in the sense that they obliterate the line of divi-
sion at the spatial limits of the body which the environmental concept
requires. The equivalent expression in psychology is that objects and
events are announced by way of certain P-functions. This sort of an-
nouncement comes through the apprehensive functions, and it appears in
perception (objects and events are announced as present), in recollection
(announced as past), and in imagination (as future, possible, ideal, or
supposed). Events, agencies, forms, and performances are announced
quite as much as are those "objects" which the biologist calls "environ-
ment" and the physicist "nature." Long ago Mach stumbled upon this
fact while he was trying to reduce nature and mind to common "sensa-
tions" ; and he then found that he had to include in sensations much more
than the spatial detail of objects. In order to keep these things "in con-
sciousness" Ehrenfels called them Gestaltqualitdten; and more recent con-
MADISON BENTLEY 103
figurationists, discerning that bare movement is apprehended quite as
directly as colors, sounds, and tastes are, have gone to the opposite ex-
treme and proclaimed that only the formal side of things, the shape or
unitary w^hole, is primary in the organism's announcement. That is a
natural but exaggerated reaction from the older fashion of filling con-
sciousness Math the qualitative or "thing" side of existence. When we
free ourselves from the physicist's nature and from the biologist's envi-
ronment, we find no more difficulty in the announcement of mere move-
ment, bare spatial plans, melodic arrangements, and rhythmical forms
than in the organism's involvement (by way of the "sensations") in colors,
tones, pressures, and the like. Remember, however, that we must either
abandon or revise the conception of discrete conscious existences.
In order to settle the difficulties raised by those "sensations" which refer
to the body and to what is going on there, let us observe again that cer-
tain P-functions announce these matters quite as regularly and naturally
as they do outside "objects." Such "purely mental" things as pain, pleas-
antness, and comfort stand on quite the same footing as bare movement
and rhythm. They are no more and no less "in consciousness." Once we
break down, for psychology, the distinctions of inner and outer, of B-sys-
tem and environment, we see that the alleged difficulty has vanished.
Now when we have provided for all those alleged mental objects which
are themselves P-functions and for all those consequences of function
which are announced as in nature or as in the body, we have gone a long
way. Sensations should no longer vex us: neither should feelings; neither
should images, which are either the sheer quality side of the announcement
or else the announcement itself taken in a less abstractive way. In either
case the image is always to be taken in reference to the T-system and not,
as it would appear to the biologist (in an "ideational" environment), or
to the physically disposed person (as an illusory or "unreal" object).
But more remains. The T-system modifies the world in more ways
than by announcements. What of striving, desiring, and doing? If we
subtract these things from the world (as all biologists, including the con-
sistent behaviorists, do), we certainly annihilate important modes of actu-
ality. We also ignore thereby a very great deal that is of primary im-
portance to the psychologist. These matters plainly exhibit what we pro-
visionally call the experiential coloring (Ce). They belong in some
fashion to the T-system, and they do not (in principle) involve the biolo-
gist's correlation of body and environment. In order to discover just
where these things do lie in psychology, we must venture an observation
which has been reserved for this context. When we make a general and
catholic survey of the P-functions, we seem to find that they touch the
foundations of life (more concretely stated, of living in the active sense)
in two ultimate ways. They are determined, first, by local interrelations
within and between bodily and physical systems and, secondly, by the
general tenor of bodily states and conditions in the T-system. We must
consider both forms of determination.
1) Local Interrelations. Here fall the neural integrations within the
brain, between the brain and the cord, the central nervous system and the
104 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
several nerves, the nervous system and the accessory receptor and effector
devices, and ultimately between these terminal organs and certain forms
of energy which have their primary locus without the T-system, affecting
the latter either in the form of stimulus or as the result of bodily move-
ment. The extra-bodily relations are not to be regarded in the biologist's
terms of environment and adaptation lest we encroach upon the provinces
of ecology and of descent. Since the central neural system is always the
primary term in these relationships, we may find in it the text of our de-
termination, and in any other part or member involved the context. Thus
the text may be (e.g.) a limited occipital field and the context a neighbor-
ing central field in an unliice chemical or electrical state. Again, the con-
text may be the general functional trend in the brain at a given moment,
a conducting pathway, visual receptor, radiant energy, a glandular secre-
tion or muscular contraction. It must be clearly understood that in this
first sort of determination of function the distinction between text and
context is set by the observational needs of the moment and not by any
such fixed and existential coupling as that of organism and environment.
2) The General Determination. Most of our psychological consider-
ation of the body has for many years fallen under the local conditions
just now discussed. This fact is probably due in part to the ease with
which we deal with relatively simple factors and in part to traditional con-
ceptions of the neural system as made up of parallel strings (neuronal
bundles) which functionate by end-to-end connections (synaptic arcs).
Thus have we dealt locally and piecemeal with our bodily structures and
functions. Of late, useful checks upon this analytical point of view have
been offered by the neurologist, the configurationist, the functional embry-
ologist, the animal experimenter, the organismal biologist, the pathologist,
the biological chemist, and the philosopher of "emergence." All of these
checks bear upon the functional integrity of the T-system. Individuals,
wholes, unities, and consensual part-functions are stressed. We shall pres-
ently see that the old functional atomisms went much too far and were
much too one-sided. They are adequate neither to the biological and psy-
chological functions nor to the genetic derivation of these functions.
Our present interest lies, however, in the psychological aspects of the
general determinations. The search for simple feelings and for simple
strivings and conations led, as inevitably as the doctrine of sensations led,
to simple bodily correlates. Failure here has been more complete than
in the case of sensation, where we have discovered that the qualitative
variety does rest in part upon differences in stimulus, local differences in
reception and conduction, and, very likely, local areas of emphasis in the
brain. But the search for local habitations and local operations to deter-
mine the P-functions taken at large has always met with limited success.
The grossest attempt passed with the passing of phrenology ; but advocates
of "central localization" have never since been wanting. Attention, speech,
thinking, and emotion have all been battlefields of theory.
But the more we know of general trends which sweep lesser systems,
of large areal interactions, of the chemical unities of the body, of neural
networks of potential and capacity, of gradual genetic differentiation of
MADISON BENTLEY 105
the specific from the general, and of the constant reorganization of func-
tional wholes, the more we shall look beneath our P-functions for general
determinations from the B-system as involved at large. Indeed, we may
freely pass beyond the limits of the body and discover integral resultants —
as L. J. Henderson has well taught us — from large physical systems
which play upon the body from without.
Now we should scarcely look for general factors of the sort which we
have been considering to determine wholly and separately any single class
of the P-functions. We might rather expect variable weightings of the
general and the local. And what we do seem to find is that local deter-
mination is maximal in those perceptual functions where complex patterns
of energy play upon delicately attuned receptors and run their course
under the general direction of intricately interwoven central and motor
systems. What we grossly call visual and auditory perceptions are here
conspicuous. At the opposite extreme of determination we find the colored
moods and the more general and inclusive stirs to activity. In both of
these cases the body is implicated at large. When we neglect in the mood
whatever betrays its local origin (e.g., dull aches about the eyes, dragging
legs, or lightness in the thorax), we seem to have what the analysts have
generally described as the simpler feelings; and it may be that here we
come closest to an unmixed determination from a general and inclusive
trend of life. In the primary stirs of activity we again detect local influ-
ences (e.g., contractions in the forehead, respiratory pulls, and other high
local tonicities), and when we abstract from these we find an alert for-
ward-tending which reflects once more the general bodily factor. It
suggests the British "conation," and it certainly bears a resemblance to
the Wundtian Trieb. As regards their difference, we can safely say that
the general bodily pattern is, in the case of the activity, richer in strong
muscular tonicity and, in the case of the feelings, richer in dermal and
visceral moments.
In our emotions the "feeling side" stands for the general component,
that is to say, for the momentary trend of things in the body; while the
apprehension of the predicament-to-be-resolved stands for the more specific
contributions to function. At the stage of resolution, the specific pattern
tends to lapse, and we have only to wait for the trend-component to sub-
side. The wide variety of emotions rests in part upon variety in appre-
hended predicament, in part upon the varied coloring of the general "or-
ganic" background, and, in part, finally, upon varied course and outcome.
Within the extensive range of action, reaching from deliberative and
reflective performances to immediate and unforeseen movements upon a
brief signal, the local and the general determinations unite in varying
degrees. The general factor is indicated in alertness or sluggishness, in
delicacy or awkwardness, in concurrent and inhibitive trends, and in a
general "priming" for the occasion. Frequent repetition, which commonly
leads to habituation, results both in a general active temper of the body and
in selective preparation for a local function of definite form and end. But
the most obvious tendency among the functions of this executive class is
progressively to lose pattern under habituation and to increase that aspect
106 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
of action which represents the general thrusts and turns of bodily activity.
The local preparation for defined and coordinated movement, which is here
on the increase, might well be expected to augment the patterned side of
the operation; but usually it does not. It does not because it slips out of
the P-function, leaving it bare, uncolored, and, as we say, automatic. For
we must remember that, when the executive aspect of doing disappears,
the P-function either lapses or changes to perception (as in holding up a
picture for scrutiny), to recollection (as when the cocked eye and wrinkled
brow denote recall), to understanding (as in turning the pages and reading
the open book), or to some other, non-executive kind of performance.
In the various forms of understanding and thinking, the specific and the
patterned appear in the sj^mbols used and in the concrete progress from
stage to stage of comprehending and elaborating; the general and unpat-
terned in glimpses of insight, of conviction, doubt, hope, belief, and the
like. The main uses of the body-at-large and of the inclusive trends
therefore punctuate, comment upon, and note the advance and issue of
thinking, while the local and patterned determinants supply the concrete
means and materials. The two main historical methods in the psychology
of thinking have both overlooked this double determination ; the one has
treated thought as logical meanings, thus neglecting bodily determination
altogether ; while the other, seeking to analyze thoughts into sensations and
other "elements," has found only the specific and patterned and has over-
looked the general and unpatterned — whence the futile debate over imaged
and imageless thinking.
May we not now write in more general terms these two interwoven
modes of bodily performance which cooperately determine the P-functions?
I think that we shall find the patterned sort prominent wherever the
functions primarily and immediately depend upon {a) articulated spatial
and temporal orders outside the T-system (as in visual, aural, or tactual
apprehension and in those actions, emotions, and understandings which rest
upon those orders), and upon {b) the chemical detail of objects and proc-
esses which are contributory to life (as in the taste-smell patterns of food
and local disturbances of digestion). Out of these articulated conditions
and out of the functions which arise from them, does the T-system build
its gigantic space-time structure of the world and establish the active rela-
tions of its apprehended self to that changing but abiding structure. The
fundamental and typical pattern is the perceptive; but if we leave out of
account the executive and the comprehending forms we distort our psychol-
ogy in the direction of the sensationalist and the intellectualist.
On the other hand, wherever the bodily and physical emphasis rests
either upon {a) change of a spatial-temporal kind or upon {b) internal
modification within the B-system, there the undifferentiated factor becomes
pronounced. Our apprehension of movement is a case in point. There
qualitative variety and articulation count for relatively little. They are
usually very meager. The apprehensions of time are similar. And here
we discover the main reason why the analyst of the "sense of movement"
and of the "time sense" has never succeeded. His "sensational" patterns
have never been adequate. The same is true of the emotions. The tremble,
MADISON BENTLEY 107
stir, and ebullition of these thwarted executions are only vaguely or second-
arily membered. They rather represent gross forms of seizure upon the
general processes of life within the T-system. Hence the variegated and
inconstant coloring of the emotion and hence the impossibility of complete
analysis. To be sure, we shall go just as far wrong when we neglect the
articulated aspect of the emotion, which produces the "scene" and the pre-
dicament, and so also shall we by a one-sided view of thinking, planning,
and deciding. In fact, all P-functions are — as we must repeat — doubly
determined by the body. We shall properly describe and understand them
only when we have discovered for each type and for each higher integration
of the several kinds the precise way in which the bodily and extra-bodily
resources are in each case fused and compounded- This description is
designed to replace alleged "mental" conditions and the organization of
alleged "conscious compounds."
The distinction just now drawn should be useful in our genetic and
developmental accounts. Only a hint of this use can here be given. First
we must sweep away the artificial boundary of birth. Instead of the
landmark which birth properly is, this incident in the course of life has
generally been made the fixed line of division between "original nature"
and "educated nature," between natural man and learned man, between
instinctive heritages and acquisitions, between gifts of nature and gifts of
environment. All of these distinctions are misleading and vicious. Even
the line drawn at the assumed instant of fertilization is more or less arbi-
trary. In every state and at every moment the living organism (like the
living cell) is functionally determined (a) by a factor which we may pro-
visionally call stock, (b) by physicochemical interchange with the outside,
(c) by internal changes (as from new materials), exercise of function and
growth. In addition, many organisms are, at certain eras in their life-
history, functionally determined (d) by the presence of other T-systems,
(e) by active association with other T-systems, and (/) by products of
this active association which appear in the form of beliefs, rules, customs,
traditions, and the like. In our case, life taken in the large is the constantly
reorganized product of all these factors. We cannot summate the factors
and we cannot safely dichotomize them into a fictitious nature and nurture,
heredity and environment, artificially conjoined at the moment of birth.
Once we have the general terms of psychological function, with its double
determination by the body and with the six conditions which make the
individual that which observation actually shows it at any time to be, we
have at hand all the necessary materials, as well as the guiding principles,
for a genetic account of the P-functions and of their issues and outcomes.
For a considerable time we may expect to find no evidence of these
functions, just as the physiologist expects to find no evidence of pulmonary
respiration in the embryo. But if we examine the T-system with care
when the symptoms of P-function begin to appear, we shall observe that
this system mainly supplies the general unpatterned conditions, and supplies
these during the physiological episodes of feeding, digesting, and moving of
trunk and members. Here we shall look less hopefully for perception and
for "insight" into character, mood, and intent of the gentle mother or
108 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
stern nurse than for a primitive and undifferentiated function which varies
its shading from thrust and impulse to gross feeling, and from gross feeling
to active and undirected search. Upon these primitive functions — not
analyzable in terms of sensations, desires, and the like — play the articula-
tions of receptor, brain, muscle, tendon, and gland. Thereupon gradually
appear the grosser perception-actions. Observation finds no warrant at
this stage for the separate and independent appearance of perceptions and
actions, but only for the inception of a more primitive performance out of
which these functions gradually emerge. In the one direction develop the
apprehensions of present things and events, and in another direction the ac-
tive struggle toward objects and states of being by the more and more skil-
ful inclusion of motor resources supported by digestive and metabolic condi-
tions. Only with the advent of the "predicament" comes the real emotion,
and only with the apprehension of "desirable" objects comes desire. Be-
fore this day arrives, the prolonged concurrent play of our factors, a, h,
and c, upon the growing organism would seem to make inappropriate any
hypothesis of "innate" emotions and desires. The more elaborate actions
and the more socialized emotions further await a fairly long period of
preparation. The germs of comprehension would seem to appear to be
present as a perceived object or event (e.g., increasing footsteps or an open-
ing door) comes to stand for something beyond the thing perceived and to
convey an implication (as of food, bath, or entertainment). The whole
term of development is, of course, the entire life-span and not merely the
two decades during which parental solicitude and public responsibility for
the immature last. Change in the P-functions continues as long as the
varying product of our six factors, and that is up to death, however tardily
death comes for the individual. An adequate description will therefore
include the thirties and the fifties quite as naturally as, and much more
thoroughly than, it has heretofore dwelt upon the years of infancy and
of adolescence.
Since we insist upon opening our psychology with distinctive functions
and decline either to call these functions conscious or to extract them from
conscious antecedents, the reader may reproach us for straining out all the
essences of the "mentalist" without replacing them by a substitute. Our
answer would be, in such a case, that nothing has been lost and nothing
annihilated. Whatever there was of actual existence and of actual organic
resource must therefore appear in some other form or in another context.
Since our study is pivoted upon certain functional activities which, like
the physiological functions, have behind them the anatomical structures
and the organized unity of the body, we shall have to look to their products
and issues to replace our "conscious" deficits.
What then, we must ask, comes out of our psychological functions? A
variety of products. Let us make a rough list of them.
1 ) Physical objects and occurrences
2) Supposed, assumed, and anticipated objects and occurrences
3) Musical, geometrical, and equated objects, and the like
4) Apprehended state, condition, and change of the body and of the
T-system
MADISON BENTLEY 109
5) Plural T-systems in communication
6) Motor changes and their immediate consequences
7) Strivings, plans, prophecies, and endeavors
8) Predicamentive situations (sometimes betvv^een T-systems)
9) General and conceptual objects
10) Opinions, beliefs, rules, and canons
11) Organized systems of 1 (the cosmos), 2 (imaginary existences), 3
(the world of spaceless things), 4 (the self), 5 (social groups), 6 and 7
(the phenomena of work and will), 8 (baffled endeavors), 9 (logic and
mathematics), and 10 (the social life of man).
If we are to make sense of this ragged and illogical-looking list, two
precautionary observations will be necessary. In the first place, the only
status of the things named is their status as functional products of the
organism. When the T-system operates in the ways which we have desig-
nated as "psychological," these things appear. Nothing is here attempted
with regard to their interpretation or valuation. If they are looked upon
as raw materials for a doctrine of objects, they can be thus considered only
in so far as they are dependent upon the system which we assumed at the
beginning, namely, the T-system.
Once we separate these objects from their functional origin, canons go
to ethics and aesthetics, plural T-systems to sociolog}"^, physical objects
and occurrences to physics, imaged and supposed objects to fiction and
poetry, and so on with the others. But while they are still attached to their
organic origin, the physical, imaginary, mathematical, and musical objects
and events refer to apprehending, and so primarily do the experienced
state, condition, and change of the body; predicaments, motor exhibitions,
stirrings, and endeavors are chiefly accounted for by the executive functions,
which include the actions and the emotions. These functions also play
their part in manufacturing the plural and intercommunicating T-systems.
Finally, general objects, beliefs, and other "social" products, as well as
organized systems, all demand insight, comprehension, and thinking of the
elaborative and creative sort. If all these functional termini are to be
called "objects," we mUst distinguish them from Gegenstande set out
against a conscious Subjekt, and we must not confuse them either with the
value-objects of Werttheorie or with ultimate forms of existence or being.
In the second place, we should not fall into the error of the intellectualist
or the perceptualist and so limit the organism (or consciousness) to the
production of knowledge and the identification of a "given" physical
world. Let us remember rather that man is a facile and versatile creature
who can turn his hand, as the above list suggests, to a great variety of
performances and accomplishments. So firmly is established the opposition
between subject and object and between the subjective and the objective
that mind and solid object or mind and knowledge have seemed to be fore-
ordained to divide the whole wide world between them.
Were it possible, it would be wise to avoid entirely the term "object,"
which suggests either a physical thing or the epistemological relation of the
knower to the intellectively known. Let us keep the immediate functional
flavor, which directs us to the operative modes of the T-system. We may
110 ~ PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
then recall our word announcement, which seems moderately apt for the
apprehensive modes (classes 1, 2, 3, 4, above) and add to it the terms
initiation, participation, resolution, and interpretation.
The T-system obviously initiates in those executive functions which we
know as actions. Here, to be sure, announced objects and occurrences
play their part ; but the primary business of the organism is to release and
set going, to play its part (classes 6 and 7) by the use of motor mechanisms.
Where the action initiated is shared by other T-systems or by changing
physical systems, the mode of activity changes to participation. The
T-system is also engaged thus in the emotion (class 8), where the predica-
ment depends upon the fact that the organism is caught up with and there-
fore seized by the dramatic scene or situation; and in class 5, where com-
munication of a social sort likewise involves a participative activity. In
those more complicated activities which we call moral and aesthetic, par-
ticipation is a main resource of the T-system. It compasses both sympathy
and empathy {Einfiihlung) by drawing upon the visceral and tonic re-
sources of the body. We "feel for" our distressed fellows, we struggle
with Laocoon, and we stretch upward with the aspiring column of stone.
Resolving appears in certain later stages of action and it appears in thwarted
forms in the emotional predicament.
The second main use made of sensations has been connected with the
description of consciousness or of experience in terms of constituent ele-
ments. But if we reject the concept of the conscious, we shall here be
greatly relieved. What we may do, instead, is to see that the dependence
of objects (still using the term as any product of a P-f unction) is not
always a gross and general dependence, but that many of these objects
exhibit a qualitative variety which helps us to understand both the organ-
ism and its operations. The wall yonder is variegated ; and when I observe
it at this moment as dependent upon a T-system I discover details of de-
pendence which I can bring, in an orderly way, under the rubrics of hue,
tint, and chroma. So likewise I find that musical complexes, speech-
sounds, sapiences, and a resisted push reveal analytic dependences which
then appear as tones, noises, tastes, smells, and strains. But I discover no
reason either for placing these things "in consciousness" or for resolving my
entire apprehension into them. The reproach of "stimulus error," "con-
fusion of process and meaning," of "mind and its object" will inevitably
be brought; but those reproaches invariably beg the question because they
rest upon the assumption of a consciousness which knows. It is wiser
here to allow a careful choice of problems and exactness of experimental
method to take precedence over doubtful concepts which involve the ob-
server in epistemological tangles. Along with our modified use of "sensa-
tion" we may also describe the configurational aspect of our objects, with-
out the exaggerated regard for "shape" and "wholeness" which some en-
thusiastic theorists maintain.
The problems of attention point to certain significant differences in vari-
ous kinds of object which refer us to a peculiarity in the P-f unctions. The
functions are, e.g., always limited in range or capacity, in their courses they
sometimes fluctuate or shift, the clarity or obscurity of parts of objects de-
fc. MADISON BENTLEY 111
pends upon functional properties, objects called figures are more highly
organized than others called grounds, and finally the functions take time to
begin and to change {inertia of attention).
The key to the feelings lies — as we have intimated — in the general direc-
tion of bodily process (digestive, metabolic, and tonic) which indicates the
trend of living at large and which leads functionally to unpatterned and
unarticulated objects. These objects are not of the physical class; although
they may (as in a black mood) deeply color and dye our familiar surround-
ings. A simple and easy way of interpreting these general trends has been
proposed in the biologist's notion of equilibrium; but it is doubtful whether
so complex and so instable a system as the body can legitimately be regarded
as generally falling out of and into equilibrium.
Let us see where the main problems of the behaviorist fall. So far as
they rest upon the correlatives "organism" and "environment" they formal-
ly pass, of course, to biology, and just now biology is very hospitable to the
modes and the manners of the person who deals in adaptive responses.
Under our own conception of psychology, the environment does not there
exist. Once admit it to psychology and it destroys that aspect of the living
organism which is agent, and so, of course, the P-functions drop out. They
all drop out save action; and, since agency is removed from action, only
muscular movement and its environmental consequences remain. It is
worth noting that neither stimulus nor response is of any consequence to
the behaving organism itself but only to the observing behaviorist, who
interprets what he sees under the fixed obsession that environment is the
sole determiner of the motor functions of the body.
As for such topics as habit, instinct, practice, fatigue, learning, and con-
ditioning— all of which are of vast interest to the behaviorist — they may be
claimed by all psychologists alike. They have their biological uses as well.
In fact they all spring from biological contexts. For us they chiefly
appear as conditions and antecedents before the functions. That is to say
that the bodily structures are charged through preceding exercise of func-
tion, under which the bodily substrate has been reorganized (habituation) ;
the factor of stock has played a part in the functional preparation (in-
stinct) ; immediately preceding exercise has favorably disposed the function
(practice) or unfavorably disposed it (fatigue) ; earlier and later segments
of function show characteristic condensations, extensions, and celerities
(learning) ; new factors admitted in course may come in time to touch off,
even to govern, the function (conditioning). Since we may always under-
stand the performances of the T-system better than we know conditions
and history, these subjects are matters pressing for research. Nevertheless,
the thoughtful psychologist will hesitate to accept terms simply because they
are the battle-cries of schools or because it is easier to borrow from biology,
medicine, or education than to design for his own special purposes.
The mode of activity most outstanding in the more abstractive actions
and emotions and everjrwhere in comprehension and elaborative thinking
is interpretation. In its simplest form interpretation penetrates or passes
beyond the apprehended object or event. The dinner-gong, distant thun-
der, and the broken bridge-railing are samples. The T-system transcends
112 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
these objects, interpreting them as "come," "hurry," and "danger." This
simple transcendence we share with many other animals. It is a fashion of
the moment to regard a similar mode as explained by the phrase "con-
ditioned reflex" and as understood by demonstrations with dogs and guinea-
pigs. "Reflex" is ill-chosen as an explanatory term and "conditioning"
often covers our ignorance of somatic factors. The primary fact is that
the object is reorganized and given a new relation to the interpreting
T-system. It is obvious that no sharp line sets oif this "transcending"
operation from plain perception ; though it is clear that the T-system is here
setting out upon a new and very important functional extension.
There are four distinctive forms of interpretation which are dis-
tinguishable as sub-classes.
1) An object or occurrence announces itself as an instrument. Its use-
fulness (in pounding, reaching, defending, cutting, etc.) is announced.
Those who discover neither accident nor "habit" behind such an interpreta-
tion call it insight; but it seems (in its simplest form) to be little more
than a slight extension of the perceptive form of apprehension.
2) Symbolization is the second sub-class. Here the object is not at all
its "physical" self. It is something else. This form of the penetration
or transcendence of the object perceived has led on, among men, to words,
numbers, and mathematical symbols.
3) In the third sub-form, objects are refashioned. "Those persons are
arguing," "The glare is from a glass roof on the hill," "This mud is from
a spring," "Pheasants have roosted here." These are familiar instances.
The T-system has "done something" to apprehended objects.
4) In the fourth sub-class, the refashioning is progressive. There is
advance toward a natural termination. The friends of Gestalt use the
word "closure." The T-system, so to say, makes the object go on toward
some end. Simple cases are the completion of partial geometrical forms
and the establishment of a rhythm only hinted at. But the more involved
cases take us into the elaborative forms of thinking, which lead to new
beliefs, new information, new problems, new solutions, and the like. Per-
haps we may safely say that progressive refashioning is the transitional form
of interpretation which leads over from plain comprehension to elaboration
or hard thinking.
If our crude survey of the psychological activities of the organism is to
be trusted, we detect in announcing, initiating, participating, resolving, and
interpreting the key to the world, in so far as the world is actively depend-
ent upon those functions of the organism which we have collectively called
psychological.^
Having looked ahead to observe the outcome and issue of our psycho-
logical performances and having looked behind to discover the organized
body as the locus of all the immediate conditions of these performances, let
us see how this point of view, which is pivoted upon function, will approach
certain of the typical and outstanding problems of the psychologist.
'All the engaging details of functional combination and interplay, of short-cutting
and economy, and of functional development and learning remain for other occa-
sions.
MADISON BENTLEY 113
We consider first the focal problems of those psychologists who analyze
in terms of process. Their sensations would here appear as those aspects
of produced objects which refer backward to the specific offices of the
receptors. The primary use of sensations in the early researches of J.
Miiller, Helmholtz, Lotze, and Wundt was to define the function of cer-
tain of the sense-organs, visual, auditory, tactual, and kinaesthetic. That
supplied the base for physiological psychology. Accepting the philosophical
category of consciousness, Wundt imbedded the sensations in it, only pro-
viding that they be not confused with the fixed "ideas" and "impressions'*
of the associationists. But there is no necessity for bringing in this cate-
gory as a place of deposit for the sensations. When we are interested in
these functional details, it is only necessary that we so safeguard our exper-
imental procedure as actually to identify that part of the functional prod-
uct which refers us back cleanly and unequivocally to the individual recep-
tor and to the hypothetical, chemical, and electrical changes which are there
released; thus: red, sweet, bitter, stab, strain, pressure, tone, and so on.
These are the sensations of physiological psychology, and when we quantify
them and their derivatives, sensitivity and sensibility, by way of the
metric methods, they become the sensations of the older psychophysics.
Since the facts and principles of association have played a prominent part
in the history of our subject, it will be well to come to terms with them.
Regarded from the point of view here proposed, association suggests those
means (still little known) by which the T-system sustains its P-f unctions
without direction from receptor and wanting the patterns of outside ener-
gies— conditions of the first importance in the ordinary course of perceiv-
ing. In memory and imagination, as well as in action, emotion, and think-
ing, the T-system is observed to functionate as an almost entirely independ-
ent system. In part this is because the efficacies of the "environment" have
been absorbed within it and in part because the T-system is able by constant
reorganization to initiate and to govern what at first required a constant
interplay with outside agencies of a physical sort. "Association" is certain
to be an unpopular term among the behaviorists (save for the educational
hybrids among them). Most behaviorists dislike to see their environment
driven from the center of the stage. At the same time this functional inde-
pendence is not to be ignored. It has grown steadily from sponge and
oyster to bee and ant, from amphioxus to man. The dubious side of asso-
ciationism, upon which the champions of Gestalt have harped, is annoying
but adventitious. It comes from a bad use of elements and from the
imperfect neurology of the reflex arc.
The point of view here suggested would find the descriptive and explan-
atory account of the P-functions to be the initial task of general psychology.
This account would refer the functions to somatic conditions, on the one
hand, and to the functional products, upon the other. As it is of the
nature of these functions to suffer constant change and reorganization, the
factors which affect growth, development, habituation, and learning would
of necessity occupy an important place. Here the direct comparison of
earlier and later stages in the same T-system, among various systems, as
between the child and the adult, between man and other animals, and upon
114 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
unlike cultural levels suggests an experimental procedure combined with
every other methodical aid. The descriptive account should be supple-
mented by a quantitative investigation of functional capacity as determined
under various conditions. The quantitative or mensural treatment v^^ould
use both the metric and the correlational methods ; but it shall seek to define
and to depict the functional mode involved and not merely to state the
amount of output or accomplishment, as is the aim and intent of most of
the present methods of test. Once carried through, the central description
and derivation of the psychological functions should supply a sound basis
for all the special psychologies, notably for the various forms of genetic
and historical psychology, for social and ethnic psychology, and for the
psychological disorders and defects. When complete, we should have for
the first time in the experimental era a psychology based upon adequate
facts and sound principles, which was applicable, as our present special
psychologies are not, to every relevant problem and to every segment and
division of the entire field.
A few years ago the present writer ( 1 ) tried to indicate how a psycholo-
gy which possessed its own way of viewing life might set about its several
tasks with men and other animals, with children and primitives, with the
disordered and the socialized. The present envisagement may be regarded
as much more radical, and it certainly departs more boldly from the men-
talistic and the behavioristic traditions. At the same time, it can scarcely
be accused of encouraging alliances with those current versions of our
subject which — as this article has contended — draw their inspiration from,
and hastily turn their products into, the other sciences and the arts of
practice. The primary contention of the present article has been that any
psychology that is to stand upon the level of the older sciences should
squarely face all the relevant facts at hand and should deal with them in
a distinctive psychological way and not as merely accessory to other sub-
jects and to the arts. Special treatments may find their specific applica-
tions in the direction of biology, medicine, education, or some other neigh-
boring discipline; but the general usefulness of psychology would geem to
require an independent account of the facts which is at once thorough
and authentic.
REFERENCES
1. Bentley, M. The psychological organism. Chap. 19 in Psychologies of 1925.
Worcester, Mass.: Clark Univ. Press, 1926. Pp. 405-412.
2. Bode, B. H. Conflicting psychologies of learning. New York: Heath, 1929.
Pp. vi+305.
3. Patrick, G. T. W. What is the mind? New York: Macmillan, 1929. Pp.
xii+185.
CHAPTER 6
PSYCHOLOGY FOR ECLECTICS
Edwin G. Boring
Harvard University
There are psychologists who belong consciously to schools, and there
are psychologists who are not aware of belonging to any school, the
scholastics and the eclectics, as it were. The former are conscious of some
systematic principle or dogma, which predetermines the nature of psy-
chology for them and evaluates the data which claim to be part of
psychology. Logically the content of the psychologies of these men is
determined a priori by certain premises, a "point of view." Psychologically
the attitude of these men tends to be dynamic and positive ; they are quick
to attack or to defend, they are possessed of a productive intolerance,^ and
they are conscious of relevant epistemological issues, although they are not
always philosophically sophisticated. In fact, an understanding of the
schools lies more in the psychological than in the logical approach. How-
ever, these psychologists of the schools are not alike in the degree with
which they accept labels nor in the degree with which they subordinate
themselves to a group mind. Gestalt psychologists seem glad to wear the
badge of the school and to confront the public as a unit.^ Behaviorists
seem to find satisfaction in the badge, but have no hesitation about differ-
ing with each other in public;^ each is, perhaps, his own school. There
are still other psychologists, who object to a class name for themselves, but
who exhibit the same positive systematic orientation as the men of the
schools;^ each of them is, presumably, also a school unto himself. Scho-
lasticism' does not, therefore, interfere with individualism ; it is the system-
atic and a priori manner of approach to psychology.
On the other hand, there are eclectics. They are really very numer-
ous and probably constitute the majority of psychologists. Their presence,
however, often goes unrecognized because they have no class name and no
group consciousness, no intolerance, and, therefore, no urge to controversy.
Occasionally one hears mention of 'the eclectic point of view,' but this
phrase seems to involve a contradiction of terms. Mere eclecticism has
no single point of view. It is a 'choosing of the best,' and, since there
^On the function of intolerance In scientific productivity, see (3).
^E.g., Wertheimer, Kohler, and Koffka.
'E.g., Watson, Lashley, Hunter, and Tolman.
*E.g., Bentley, and perhaps even Titchener. Of course, none of these individual-
ists objects to being followed; he objects only to following. Thus Titchener had,
in a sense, a school because of his great influence; but he eschewed a label for
himself, and his followers likewise have eschewed labels, even the designation,
"Titchenerist."
[115]
X16 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
can be established no absolute 'good' with the schools in such sharp dis-
agreement, the 'best' must remain individual and personal. Nevertheless,
for all this formal argument against a unitary eclecticism, there seems to
be a considerable amount of positive agreement among the eclectics, an
agreement vv^hich is something more than the mere absence of intolerance.
For instance, American psychology, especially as contrasted with the
German, seems to be eclectically minded, and, if against this view someone
cites the personal quarrels of the American psychologists of the nineties,
it is possible, on the other hand, to exhibit the relative harmony, the reci-
procal interest, and the incomplete synthesis of the younger generations.^
The philosophy of the American trend was explicit in the functional
school of Dewey and Angell, centered largely at Chicago, although Cat-
tell, Thorndike, and Woodworth — to mention only the Columbia group
— belong in this same picture and yet have no label. They are eclectics,
but they must be something more or they would all be off the main track.
What is' the main track ?
My thesis is that these 'eclectics' are not really mere eclectics, picking
and choosing according to the adventitious operation of personal idiosyn-
crasies, but that they are historically determined. The majority of psy-
chologists, so I firmly believe, define psychology, not in an apriori fashion
as the 'scholastics' do, but a posteriori as they find it given to them.
They do not attempt to deduce the chapters and data of psychology from
some first principles, but they endeavor to induce a definition of psychology,
when they engage in this undertaking at all, from the materials given
them as psychology. Such an attitude does not mean that anything that
pretends to be psychology must be accepted, on its own representations,
into the body psychological. History has its warrants and its sanctions.
Even the eclectic must choose, and in this case he chooses what has proved
its worth. At bottom the test is, of course, pragmatic: those conceptions
and methods belong in psychology which have been most fruitful, that is
to say, which have placed the resultant data in relationship to the greatest
number of other data and have thus enlarged and knit together the system-
atic structure that psychology eventually must be.
There is no name for this psychology that is thus defined a posteriori
by induction from history, nor do I wish to coin one. My point is that
psychology in 1930 exists. The task of the psychologist is not to rule out
this part or to emphasize that, to say what it should be or what it should
not be, but rather to interpret it in the light of its history, and to say what
it is. It is a task that should appeal to the empirically minded scientist,
for it is like the task of science, to attempt the description of a structure
that is given. Of course, individuals will differ in their descriptions, for
evaluation of the past is also involved, and the situation is not entirely
objective. However, I wish to attempt here a statement of what psy-
chology in 1930, an evolutionary product of the past, would seem to me to
"On the thesis that there is a unitary American psychology, which all fits to-
gether, see the discussion in my recent book (4, Chaps. XX and XXI).
EDWIN G. BORING 117
be; and the test of my objectivity will have to be the assent which this
article commands.
Determination vs. Freedom
Logically the first choice which the psychologist seeking a system would
have to make concerns the definition of science in relation to determinism.
It seems hardly necessary to labor this point. The eclectically minded
psychologist, who takes as psychology what history provides for him in
1930, is going to choose determinism, for psychology has come to be
scientific — in the physical deterministic sense of science. If the psychol-
ogist wants freedom, he will not be the historically determined eclectic.
However, the reader must not misunderstand me. Determinism is far
from being the 'truth.' The problem of freedom and determinism is
the great unresolved problem of philosophy, and the psychologist is quite
free to make his choice. I have, for instance, no quarrel with McDougall.
McDougall hopes, I think, that there will always be some freedom left
to the mind ; on no other grounds can I understand the significance of his
seven marks of "behavior" (14, pp. 43-57). I hope that mind is really
completely determined. Yet we both have the same respect for scientific
fact. No causal relationship is ever so precisely established that the deter-
minist does not still believe in the persistence of a probable error; and a
probable error measures the persistence of ignorance. Perhaps it leaves
room for freedom. The problem is one of limits. Probable errors get less
and less as precision of research increases. Is the limit zero or is it a finite
value? If we could establish the latter case, we should have measured
the range of freedom without, of course, determining freedom. I cannot
however, feel that this point of view is profitable in 1930, although I can
quite happily leave McDougall free for freedom, because its occurrence
cannot be empirically disproved.
If the eclectic refuses to admit freedom into his psychology, it is be-
cause he thinks of psychology as scientific and is holding to complete
determinism as a fundamental postulate of science. It seems to me that
needless argument would be avoided if McDougall would claim that his
psychology is, in part, not scientific. He would be accepting the verdict
of the majority and bravely surrendering the protection of the majority.
However, none of these matters is worth fussing about so long as the
issue is clear. We should find ourselves quarreling over nothing more
than the use of words.
EXPERIMENTALISM VS. EMPIRICISM
There is no method for dealing with freedom, but, after the eclectic
has decided to stick to determinism, he is faced at once with a choice
between the experimental and the empirical methods.^ He has also the
third possibility of rationalism.
'I am using the word 'empiricism' for all systems that originate in experience.
The adjective from this noun is 'empirical.' I do not mean the word in the
sense of 'English empiricism,' which ought, as Titchener has pointed out, to
.118 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930 M
Of course, there is no such thing as a mere fixation of the phenomenal
world for the purposes of science. The simplest observation in physics
or in psychology has in it the essence of a judgment or an interpretation.
In this sense all science is essentially rational in method. 'Rationalism,'
however, means that the fundamental data as well as the observational
processes are given independently of experience. Pure mathematics can
be thoroughly rationalistic in method, a fact that appears most clearly in
non-Euclidean geometries. For psychology this thoroughgoing rationalism
can, I think, be rejected without argument. The verdict of history is
too clear for the point to be labored. Even the philosopher who rejects
the experimental method accepts the empirical.
The empirical method includes the experimental method, but it is not
the same. Empiricism finds its data in experience and interprets them.
Experimentalism also finds its data in experience, but it controls its in-
terpretations by definite canons. The fear of the experimentalist is that
unconscious prejudice will enter into free interpretation, and psychologists
have reason to know the reality of this danger. The experiment repeats
observations, because repetition is necessary for inductive generalization.
The experiment is analytical^ because it isolates factors for independent
observation, often by way of artificial control with apparatus. Isolation
represents a mistrust by the scientist of selective attention: if the range of
observation is too broad, an artifact of attention may enter in. In general,
the experimental method is the method of concomitant variations, used to
establish, inductively, causal relationships.
The philosopher who is working with psychological problems most
often uses the empirical, but not the experimental, method. The man
who styles himself a psychologist and explicitly refuses to call himself a
philosopher tries to use only the experimental method. There are also,
it is true, philosopher-psychologists who lie between these extremes. Now
what shall the eclectic choose? In 1930 he will choose, I think, the ex-
perimental method and eschew the empirical method that is not experi-
mental. In making his choice he will examine the productivity of the
two methods during the last seventy years, and will conclude that the fear
of unrestrained empiricism is justified.
We must remember that the experimental method is not immediately
adequate to every psychological problem. The history of experimental
psychology is a history of the extension of the experimental method to
new fields, and the end of the process is not yet. The philosopher dislikes
to be limited to the experimental method in psychology, because its shuts
him off from problems of his fundamental interests, which, on the other
hand, give him courage to risk the dangers of uncontrolled empiricism.
However, I do think that the eclectic psychologist will not wish to choose
have the adjective "empiristic." Cf. the German: Empirismus, empirisch, em-
piristisck. A genetic theory of space is 'empiristic,' but Brentano's psychology
was 'empirical.' The tv?o adjectives help, but it would be better if there were
two good nouns. (Cf. 5, 2, and esp. 19.)
EDWIN G. BORING 119
the empirical method of the philosopher for psychology. We face again
the question of the convenience of terms. Hocking (8) has called experi-
mental psychology, as it exists today, "near-psychology," and left the name
"psychology" for the broader, less accurate empiricism. However, he will
not in his generation prevail against historical inertia in establishing these
terms. Understanding by the largest number of persons would be aided
if he would reverse the meaning of "near-psychology" and "psychology."
Of course, if he thinks that "near-psychology" is a term of opprobrium,
we must leave him free to use words as he wishes, so long as we under-
stand his meaning so that we can re-evaluate them.
Behaviorism vs. Phenomenalism
The eclectic of 1930 will accept both behavior and phenomena as the
data of his psychology. By 'phenomena' he will mean, of course, the
data of "immediate experience," of "experience regarded as dependent
upon the experiencing individual," of 'consciousness' if the word be shorn
of too explicit a meaning of immanent objectivity, of 'introspection' if
that word be divested of its meaning of analysis into fixed elements. But
how can he accept both?
He will succeed by rejecting dualism. The Cartesian dichotomy of
mind and body has dominated psychology for nearly three centuries, but
there is nothing inevitable about it. Empiricism is the method of all
science, and the phenomena, as the positivists have said and Mach has
made clear to psychologists, are the first data of every science. The be-
haviorist does not get along without consciousness ; he simply substitutes
the consciousness of the experimenter for the consciousness of the subject,
and erects a system of realities where the basal data are all of visual
space. This last statement may surprise the reader, because the behaviorist
adopts an epistemology without making his assumptions clear. Let me,
therefore, elaborate it.
Behaviorism is sometimes identified with 'objective' psychology. Be-
haviorists sometimes claim that their method is 'objective.' Hence one
asks how any scientific method can be objective when its essence is sub-
jective observation? It appears that the term, 'objective method,' is used
in psychology for the method of physics, and it is pl-ain that physics
is as subjective as any science, but that the nature of its subjective materials
is usually lost sight of because it is nearly always the same : the phenomena
of physics are visual-spatial phenomena. Visual space perception is the
most accurate perceptual capacity that human beings have. In the case
of the perception of the straight extension of a line past a critical point,
the case of the vernier, it, appears that visual acuity may be accurate for a
visual angle as little as seven seconds of arc. Hence the physicist attempts
to reduce all his immediate observations to the observation of a permanent
visual record or the observation of a seen point upon a scale. 'Objectiv-
ity' of method thus means literally the limitation of subjectivity to the
most accurate kind of perception. The behaviorist, it appears, avoids
consciousness no more than the physicist or the introspectionist.
120 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
This subjectification of behaviorism does not, however, provide the
eclectic with a positive point of view in combining both behavior and
phenomena. Let me approach the matter in two ways, and let me take
the more naive view first. Perhaps it is also the more useful view for
the psychologist who dislikes epistemology.
The experimental method yields facts, which are always induced re-
lationships between variable terms. They are, strictly speaking, correla-
tions got by the method of concomitant variations, which experimentation
is. A relationship cannot involve less than two terms, and most facts are
causal in the sense that one term is logically and temporally prior to the
other, that is to say, it is the condition of the other. This is essentially
the view of David Hume, Ernst Mach, and Karl Pearson.
Now the psychologist has — if we keep the gross outlines without refine-
ment— three classes of terms with which to work: (a) stimulus, (b) phen-
omenon, and (c) response. They are related in a fact, temporally and
logically, to each other as shown in Figure 1. The simplest psychological
Phenomenon^
Stimulus ^Response
FIGURE 1
fact represents a correlation between two of these variables. The older
introspective psychology, which hoped to find causal relations between
phenomena, failed. That, I think, is the historical verdict. Even the
law of association is not a law of pure consciousness, and no other law
comes nearly so close to the ideal of the old 'descriptive' psychology.
The older introspective psychology (of Wundt and Titchener, for
example) emphasized primarily the first relation of the diagram, the
relation of stimulus and phenomenon. All the chapters on sensation and
perception dealt almost exclusively with this kind of fact. There was no
assumption of a "constancy hypothesis," as Gestalt psychology would now
have us believe, for then there would have been no law to state. From
Fechner to the present the laws of sensation and perception have stated
the nature of the functional correlation between stimulus and phenomenon,
because a simple one-to-one correlation ("constancy hypothesis") did not
hold. In the same manner but less obviously, the stimulus, or its equiva-
lent in a less clearly defined situation, appeared in the laws of feeling,
attention, memory, action, emotion, and thought. I shall return to the
'situation' in a moment.
Behaviorism has tried to limit itself to the second class of relations,
the relation of stimulus to response. I do not need to enlarge upon this
point, because the notion has been explicit in behaviorism, whereas the
stimulus slipped into introspective psychology'' unannounced by the back-
door. And we all know the sort of fact that behaviorism yields.
EDWIN G. BORING 121
The third kind of relation, the relation of phenomenon to response, has
been considered least in psychology, and yet it is not entirely missing. The
correlation of a type of reaction consciousness with the reaction-time be-
longs in this class. So does the relation of imaginal type to accuracy of
recall as the topic is usually investigated. In a large measure, psychiatry
is interested in this relation wherever behavioral maladjustments are re-
ferred to conscious phenomena. Of course, psychotherapeutics uses one of
the other relations, because it has to control a cause and the stimulus or
'situation' is the only prior term accessible for direct control.
Now we can turn to the 'situation.' The diagram of the three terms
represents the scientific ideal. In it the stimulus and response are what
we might call physical values, taken always in relation to another term
to establish a fact. Experientially they generally derive most immedi-
ately from visual-spatial perception, but we are justified in regarding
them simply as physical realities. While the observational methods for
the two seemi to be alike, they are always discrete in the experimental
setting, for one is the prior condition and the other the subsequent effect.
However, there are many first terms that do not admit of precise physical
definitions. Green light of 505 millimicrons wave-length may be a stimu-
lus, but my grandmother is not a stimulus; she is a 'situation.' The
Aufgabe is a situation. The raison d'etre of an Einstellung or a deter-
mining tendency is a situation. The cat that produces rage in a dog is a
situation and not a stimulus in the precise sense of the term. To call
these ill-defined, effective objects and events stimuli is to pervert a term
from its precise meaning. One can call them 'determinants' if one likes,
and then a 'determinant' is a term in a psychological fact which is prior
to response or phenomenon, as the case may be, which plays the role of
the stimulus, but which is still vaguely defined by its meaning to the or-
ganism which it affects. The ideal of scientific psychology is, of course, to
get rid of the 'determinants' and to learn to translate them into the
precisely defined stimuli, and I should recommend the use of the word
'determinant' in this sense, if I were sure that everyone would remember
that its use is always a confession of scientific weakness. Unfortunately the
adoption of a new word is apt to carry with it the illusion of definiteness.
However, the diagram must finally be modified by its complete denial!
The analysis that it represents is "differential" (Kohler's term, 11,
pp. 163-168), that is to say, it is like the differential analysis of calculus
which is made with the intention of undoing it after it has served its
purpose. We want in psychology, by the multiplication of observed corre-
lations between terms, to get rid of the terms and to interpolate continua.
For instance, we may ask: Is the stimulus in the apparatus, in the receptor,
or at some one of the successive points along which excitation in the ner-
vous system is propagated? Any determined reality at any one of these
points can form the first term of that correlation into which stimulus enters,
and ultimately the intercorrelations give us a continuum in which the
terms have disappeared. Nevertheless it is necessary to have the terms
while the experimentation is in progress; continuity comes later.
122 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
If we Stop at the naive level, the phenomena simply appear as middle
terms. They may act as consequents with stimuli (or 'determinants')
or as antecedents with responses. They do not appear in the simple rela-
tion of stimulus and response, but they enter into very many complex
relations. Scientific psychology does not stop with relations of two terms;
it builds up more and more elaborate systematic structures. Here all
three kinds of terms enter, and the phenomena are truly middle terms.
The reaction experiment is an example, for in its laws the nature of the
stimulus, the conscious pattern, and the reaction-time are all interrelated.
So much for naivete. What I have said is enough for the eclectic to
tell his elementary class in order to avoid the troublesome epistemology
of the various schools. He gives the diagram, explains how a fact is a
relation of two or more of its terms, shows which are antecedents and
which consequents, points out that we have to get along with 'deter-
minants' instead of stimuli in so young a science as psychology, and men-
tions the ultimate continuity which is the ideal. If he wishes to add that
introspection is a method of getting at middle terms, of observing the
brain directly, as it were, he will not be telling the exact truth, but he
will probably bring his class nearer the truth than by anything else he
can expound in ten minutes.
There is not space here for us to go fully into the more sophisticated
epistemology of this question, but I wish to indicate where the valid point
of view for the eclectic lies. We must distinguish carefully between the
real and the actual. The real is forever unattainable by any direct means.
It is inferred from the actual. The actual depends upon the immediately
given of experience. In science one proceeds always from the actual
toward the real. In behaviorism the actualities are nearly always the data
of visual space, but the realities are what these data mean, this stimulus
and that response. In the case of phenomena this dichotomy still persists,
and the failure to recognize it is a constant source of confusion. Visual
space enters in, but so do all the other phenomenal actualities. However,
they come to mean other realities, mental objects, as it were. When Kiilpe
called the attribute a conscious actuality and the sensation a psychic real,
he meant just this thing, and ultimately Titchener came over to the same
view (13, 17, but cf. 16). There has, however, never been formulated
on the basis of psychological experimentation a real system of 'mental
objects,' like sensation, image, idea, feeling, thought, and conation. Al-
ways the stimulus, or behavior, or something of the nervous system has had
to be brought in. Hence the emphasis has persistently tended toward the
nervous system. Sometimes the total psychological real is said to be the
psychophysical organization, but the word 'psychophysical' here implies
a dualism that has little significance. Sometimes the real is said to be the
nervous system. Such a view holds that introspection is a method for
observing brain processes, and that the 'unconscious' Is nervous. It is a
sound view if one can but think of the brain and the nervous system as
being only realities, that is to say, constructs, or even theories and hypoth-
eses. The trouble is that there is also an actual brain given in experience
EDWIN G. BORING 123
more directly, and the two are apt to be confused. The 'unconscious' is
also an unsatisfactory reality because it is apt to be confused with the real
brain of the phj^siologists or the phenomenal actuality. That there is a
real 'psyche' which psychologists study by both behavioral and intro-
spective methods, the eclectic will wish to affirm, and, as he will seldom
try to press the epistemological question further, we need not seek to
name it.
We have dealt at considerable length with the question of the inclusion
of both behavioral and introspective data within psychology, because it is
at this point that the schools are most divergent, and it is here that the
eclectic most needs justification. That the trend of history is toward
this synthesis is abundantly evident. Purely introspective psychology
failed. Behaviorism got most of its problems from introspective psychol-
ogy, and ever since Watson formulated radical behaviorism other behavior-
ists have been busy modifying it in the direction of the older psychology.
On the other hand, Gestalt psychology, which began in experimental phe-
nomenalism, has come in Kohler's hands to include behaviorism, or at least
the behavioral data (12, Chaps. I and VII). Most psychologists want
the synthesis because psychology has always implied it. The eclectic can
have his way, if he will but accept this formulation.
Atomism vs. Organization
Here the eclectic will certainly wish to take the view of Gestalt psy-
chology. Any fixed, predetermined elements of analysis impose upon him
too great constraints. He will reject sensationism, because a strict ad-
herence to sensory elements leads him to ignore other phenomenal data of
which he wants to take account. He will reject 'refllexism' for the same
reason. Wherever total structures appear in his reals, he will accept
them gladly. He will remain an atomist in his experimentation, because
the variables to be correlated in an experiment are essentially discrete.
But he will seek to avoid bundles of correlated terms in constructing his
realities, and will there interpolate continuity, structure, and organization.
We must not fail to note, however, that in accepting the doctrine of
Gestalt psychology the eclectic is still being guided by history. James
(10, Vol. II, pp. 224-290) made the argument against sensationism in
1890. Dewey (6) made the argument against 'reflexism' in 1896."^ The
virtue of Gestalt psychology is that it is simply psychology and as old as
experimental psychology. I doubt if any psychologist has seriously held
to the "bundle hypothesis" since James Mill in 1829.^ Certainly Wundt
^I have just reread this classic article, and it sounds to me exactly like Kohler's
discussion of the same matter, a third of a century later.
®I have in mind here Max Wertheimer's paper (21). This is the paper that
begins with the hypothetical case of the perception of a house, trees, and the sky
from a window. Wertheimer asks whether there might be said to be 327 bright-
nesses and color-tones, 120 in the house, 90 in the trees, and 117 in the sky. He
then demolishes such a "bundle hypothesis." When I first read this passage I
was shocked, not at the sin of the "bundle hypothesis," but at the assumption that
any psychologist, who is worth refuting at the present day, should seriously be
124 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
did not. The eclectic who waits upon the course of history need not fear
Gestalt psychology because it is new; the new thing about it is that it has
made explicit much that often remained only implicit before.
FUNCTIONALISM VS. STRUCTURALISM
The old controversy in America was between functional and structural
psychology, as focused respectively in Angell at Chicago and Titchener at
Cornell. The eclectic of 1930 will choose neither of these American
psychologies of the first decade of the present century, for psychology has
outgrown both. However, the old issue still exists as applied to the
modern psychologies.
We have already seen that the eclectic will choose modern structuralism,
that is to say, he will choose a psychology that deals with structured
wholes built upon both behavioral and phenomenal terms. This new
structuralism differs from the old structuralism in that it includes behav-
iorism and in that it does not attempt formal analysis into fixed sensory
elements. But can the eclectic accept functionalism, too, without giving
up this structuralism?
The four marks of a functional psychology are these: (a) It studies
"mental operations" or activities; it is thus dynamic and not static. (^) It
deals with "the fundamental utilities" of mind and the ways in which the
mind is "engaged in mediating between the environment and the needs of
the organism"; it is biological in the adaptive sense, (c) For this reason
it considers the total organism, and gives attention both to behavior and
to phenomena, (d) For the same reason it lends itself readily to tech-
nology or practice, for the practical problems of applied psychology always
center in the relation of the organism to its environment.^ These were
the characteristics of functionalism twenty-five years ago and they still are
its marks.
With respect to the first and third of these marks of a functional psy-
chology we have already had the eclectic make a choice. He has rejected
activity as an immediate datum and has included it as one kind of organ-
ization in the psychic realities toward which he works. The psychology
of Akt or Funktion in the tradition of Brentano he rejects only as he
rejects empiricism that is not experimentalism. Since his psychic reals are
supposed to hold such a view. Wertheimer most successfully, however, refutes
James Mill's Analysis of the Human Mind (IS, cf. esp. chap. iii). Similarly
Kohler in his latest book (12) triumphantly charges some windmills of his own
erection, without a hint, by way of explicit footnote to the unsophisticated reader,
that the windmills exist today chiefly in the author's mind.
'J. R. Angell (1) enumerated the first three of these marks when he summed up
the case for functional psychology in his presidential address before the Ameri-
can Psychological Association. The fourth point about practice is clear on the
face of the matter. It was the thesis of John Dewey in "Psychology and Social
Practice" (7), and Dewey started the Chicago school by his paper on the reflex
arc (6). Titchener (18) made practically the same analysis of G. T. Ladd's
functional psychology. Titchener's four points were: {a) the self; {b) activity;
{c) teleology or adaptive value; [d) practicality. Here the self is the only new
item. The quotations in the text are from Angell (1).
EDWIN G. BORING 125
stripped of any reference to the dualism of mind and body, he is dealing
with the total psychophysical organism, except that he does not like to use
the word 'psychophysical' for the reason that it implies the pernicious
Cartesian dichotomy. The crux of the matter must, therefore, lie in his
interest in the utilities of mind and in practice.
It has been said that a scientific psychology cannot be functional because
we cannot experimentally observe uses or values, and because the whole
range of scientific possibilities for psychology is already stated in the tri-
angular diagram which we have already considered. Such a statement is,
however, true only in a limited way, for it takes the matter epistemolog-
ically and not psychologically. Let us consider both points of view.
Epistemologically it is plain that a fact is a relation and that a relation
is a function. Phenomenon is a function of stimulus, and response a
function of stimulus or of phenomenon. The psychological use of a stim-
ulus is to condition a response or a phenomenon. The psychic real is a
functional structure.
This conclusion leads to the rather surprising dictum that psychology
deals only with meanings, for a meaning is just such a relation as we have
considered a fact to be. I am not here being led by the subtleties of
philosophical method into an absurdity. This statement is simply the
general form of Titchener's context theory of meaning. The context
theory held that meaning is a relation in which a consequent term accrues
to an antecedent. The behavioral theory of meaning holds that a response
is the context of a stimulus. ^° However, we can go further and say that
for most meanings of the older introspective psychology the phenomenon
is logically the response to a stimulus (or 'determinant'). Even Titch-
ener came close to behaviorism in his psychology of meaning, because he
recognized that most meaning is not present at all except as there is dis-
criminative behavioral response to indicate its presence. An organism
'knows' this or that when it responds selectively, in a phenomenal or
motor manner, to a stimulus (or 'determinant').
It is now clear that, in establishing psychological facts by the experi-
mental method of correlation, we are arriving at functional statements of
relations, at meanings, at statements of the capacities of an organism. Some
of these capacities are important in life. The psychologist does not have
to consider this importance, but he can take it into account, if he wishes,
without giving up his scientific attitude. The applied psychology that
deals with the utilities of mind for living can be nothing more than a
selection of the facts of scientific psychology.
It is this question of selection that leads us from epistemological to
psychological discussion. The points of view and the motives of psychol-
ogists come in. Many psychologists select their problems from the multi-
plicity of relations which our three-cornered diagram implies, because they
I
^°That behaviorism has in the past offered the best approach to the problenr
of meaning and cognition is not generally recognized. I find this belief, how-
ever, in the vrell-known paper of E. B. Holt (9), and in the writings of E. C
Tolman (esp. 20).
126 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
hope that some of the relationships will be useful. If they shut their eyes
to the practical utility of certain psychological facts, they are for the time
being 'pure' psychologists ; and then they can open them again and become
technologists. The answer to the question as to whether the structuralist
can also be a functionalist is Yes. He can work with the same method and
be concerned with the same kind of facts, but his interest is broader as
against utility and narrower as against the range of facts.
This whole matter is so overlaid with emotion that it is hard to keep
thought clear. In part the 'pure' scientist condemns the technologist as
a matter of defense, for he wants to be let alone to study apparently im-
practical facts. He resents the technologist's lack of interest in many of
his findings. He deplores the technologist's lack of precision, for a prac-
tical urge often leads to gross methods where refinement is impossible, and
to a wholesale substitution of 'determinants' for stimuli. But this quarrel
is only a psychological matter and quite irrelevant to the logic of the
problem. The structuralist may be also a functionalist if he chooses.
And so, I think, the eclectic will choose formally to include the func-
tional interest in his psychology, although he may often not care to culti-
vate this interest in himself.
The Eclectic's Psychology
What, then, is the eclectic's psychology in 1930 and how does he come
by it?
He goes to all the psychologies and examines them genetically as histor-
ical developments. He accepts whatever has shown vitality and fertility
over a long period of time, and rejects the rest. Thus he accepts deter-
minism and rejects freedom, he embraces experimentalism and avoids other
empiricism. His choice is not based upon decisions as to truth and falsity,
but upon the pragmatic test of fertility.
When he comes to the choice between phenomenalism and behaviorism,
he wishes to accept both, because both have been productive and because
both interest him. Here, however, he meets a difKculty. Can he, even as
an eclectic, bring under the single name, psychology, the subject-matters
of supposedly incompatible schools? He can if he wishes, but, if he is
epistemologically and psychologically minded about the matter, he will
say to himself: The fact that these schools both claim to be psychology,
and the fact that I and many other psychologists find a unitary interest
in them both, means that there must be some unitary account of them both
which underlies the apparent incompatibility. So he seeks this principle
in epistemology, and he finds it, very properly for an experimental psy-
chology, in the notion of what an experiment is, what it yields, and the
relation of all scientific experiment to experience. He sees that behaviorism
and physics are just as much and just as little 'mentalistic' as 'intro-
spective' psychology, that phenomena are not separated from the other
data of science by the gulf of a dualism, and that they are not, as data,
the psychic realities which are his objective. He may go as far as he likes
in this development, but most psychological eclectics will be satisfied with
very little epistemology.
EDWIN G. BORING 127
Ik Finally, the eclectic faces the problem of function, use, and practicality
in psychology, and he discovers that he can extend his interest in these
directions without surrendering any of the principles which he has already
accepted. He sees that science and technology ordinarily go hand in hand,
and he allows these aims to psychologists and indulges in them himself if
he be so inclined.^^
Is it too hopeful a picture to say that he then, with mind at rest on
these epistemological questions, hurries back to his laboratory to start
new research and never bothers about such systematic issues again?
REFERENCES
1. Angell, J. R. The province of functional psychology. Psychol. Rev., 1907,
14, 61-91.
2. Boring, E. G. Empirical psychology. Amer. J. Psychol, 1927, 38, 475-477.
3. . The psychology of controversy. Psychol. Rev., 1929, 36, 97-121.
4. . A history of experimental psychology. New York: Century, 1929.
Pp. xvi-f699.
5. Carmichael, L. What is empirical psychology? Amer. J. Psychol., 1926,
37, 521-527.
6. Dewey, J. The reflex arc concept in psychology. Psychol. Rev., 1896, 3,
357-370.
7. . Psychology and social practice. Psychol. Rev., 1900, 7, 105-124.
8. Hocking, W. E. Mind and near-mind. Proc. 6th Int. Cong. Phil., 1927,
203-215.
9. Holt, E. B. Response and cognition. J. Phil, Psychol, etc., 1915, 12, 365-
373, 393-404. Reprinted in: The Freudian wish and its place in ethics.
New York: Holt, 1915. Pp. 153-208.
10. James, W. Principles of psychology. (2 vols.) New York: Holt, 1890. Pp.
xii+689; vi-f704.
11. KoHLER, W. An aspect of Gestalt psychology. Chap. 8 in Psychologies of
1925. Worcester, Mass.: Clark Univ. Press, 1926. Pp. 163-195.
12. . Gestalt psychology. New York: Liveright, 1929. Pp. xii-|-403.
13. KuLPE,, O. Versuche iiber Abstraktion. Ber. u. d. I. Kong. f. exper. Psychol,
1904, 56-68.
14. McDouGALL, W. Outline of psychology. New York: Scribner's, 1923. Pp.
xvi-1-456.
15. Mill, J. Analysis of the human mind. London, 1829.
16. Rahn, C. Relation of sensation to other categories in contemporary psy-
chology. Psychol Monog., 1913, 16, No. 67. Pp. 131.
17. TrrcHENER, E. B. Sensation and system. Amer. J. Psychol, \91S, 2^, 2S%-2S7.
18. . Functional psychology and the psychology of act: I. Amer. J.
Psychol, 1921, 32, 519-542.
19. . Empirical and experimental psychology. J. Gen. Psychol, 1928,
1, 176-177.
20. Tolman, E. C. a behaviorist's definition of consciousness. Psychol Rev.,
1927, 34, 433-439.
21. Wertheimer, M. Untersuchungen zur Lehre von der Gestalt. Psychol.
Forsch., 1923, 4, 301-350.
"It seems odd that I should feel that the view of psychology which I have pre-
sented in this paper is very close to the underlying view of Kohler, the polemicist,
in his Gestalt Psychology (12), a book which is supposed to defend an extreme
and a new view, and not merely to sum up the work of the last seventy years in
the psychological laboratories. Yet I have this impression, and in stating it I
epitomize my keen admiration for Gestalt psychology, an admiration which if
founded upon my belief that Gestalt psychology is not what it claims to be.
CHAPTER 7
STRUCTURAL PSYCHOLOGY
John Paul Nafe
Clark University
"Structural" psj^chology, strictly speaking, applies only to the opposition
of the Wundtian influence, as expressed in the work of E. B. Titchener
and others, to functional concepts. It has accomplished its sole purpose,
and the origin of the name and history of the movement have been ade-
quately treated (1, 2). "Experimental" psychology was the designation
of the broader movement, but with the more general acceptance of ex-
perimental methods the term lost its earlier obvious significance. Many of
the logical and metaphysical questions so important to another generation
of psychologists have faded, ^ unanswered, from the picture, and the present
generation, impatient of such matters, prefers the risk of untenable posi-
tions and temporary confusions to the certainty of time lost in attempts
to take positions upon questions of fact before the facts are known. The
present chapter treats of the experimental psychologies of today, regard-
less of the philosophical positions of individual psychologists, and the old
term, experimental psychology,^ is used to designate them.
Experimental psychology is an attempt to describe the facts upon which
our conception of a mental life is based and to find the conditions or laws
under which instances are realized. Determination of purpose and ex-
planation by purpose are excluded. Practically, experimental psychology
usually includes a study of {a) stimulus conditions, {b) nervous processes,
(c) psychological experience, and {d) reaction or response. Besides our
general statement of problem and our experimental method, we inherit
from an earlier generation a subdivision of the field into three specific
problems, those of {a) sensation, {b) perception, and (c) conception or
memory (the higher mental processes). In the earlier days these were
^Faded as a topic of interest. I believe the "fading" has in reality consisted
of a tacit assumption by experimental psychologists as a group of a mechanistic
hypothesis. Purposive conceptions still find expression in both psychological and
behavioristic systems, but their authors lose caste quickly among all psychologists,
interesting as such systems may be to other groups. The distinction, however, is
not always clear. The influence of a stimulating situation upon a body with
unlimited degrees of freedom may be expressed in terms objectionable to some
but meaning nothing more "purposive" than physical "force" applied to an
electromagnetic field where the determination of reaction is not as obvious as it
is in machine systems with a single degree of freedom but mechanically just as
effective. Such differences may be classed with language difficulties.
^It may be found a bit confusing to use "experimental psychology" as the more
general term and "psychology" as a branch, but the words seem to be used more
and more in that way.
[128]
JOHN PAUL NAFE 129
known as the problems of (a) sensation, (b) simultaneous association,
and (c) successive association. With the introduction of the experimental
method most, if not all, of the specific theories of the associationists were
abandoned, but the revolt did not go to the three problems as there formu-
lated or as stated by Aristotle. Almost unaltered they remain with us to
this day as the problems of general psychology although, as it works out,
individuals who are active in one of these fields are likely to neglect or
even disclaim the others. With the shift of emphasis from systematic
considerations to experimentally observed facts, the distinctions between
schools of psychology have tended to disappear, and the practical barrier of
subject-matter or problem ceases to separate completely our interests.
Many collateral branches of psychology have developed, but these usually
include a general psychology in some form and will not be separately
discussed.
In the development of experimental psychology there have been, within
fairly recent years, two major revolts resulting in the schools or move-
ments known as behaviorism and Gestalttheorie. Though sharply dis-
tinguished from psychology proper by their proponents, there is no doubt
that both belong within the field of experimental psychology, and in the
present paper I shall attempt in a general way to set forth my own under-
standing of what psychology, in the narrower sense, is and how these two
schools differ systematically from the parent body. All three branches of
experimental psychology are adequately defined, in a general way, by
their method, that of direct observation, and by their problems, the de-
scription of the facts and discovery of laws. Among these problems we
may include explanation if by that we mean correlation with the facts of
physiology and neurology, and we may include prediction if by that we
mean the application of laws to future events. At present all three schools
are engaged in problems which expressly or by inference admit the division
of the field into the three problems outlined by the associationists, but
these problems are at all times subject to reinterpretation in the light of
past progress. There are no beliefs which are characteristic of experi-
mental psychology nor any doctrines, other than the restrictions mentioned,
to which one must subscribe. In considering stimulus conditions we in-
fringe upon the physical sciences, in our study of the nervous processes we
duplicate much of the field of neurology, and in our work upon reaction
there is much that is also of interest to physiology, but our problems, as
they appear today, are different from those of any one of these other
sciences. In our work we also must make assumptions which are not
acceptable to all psychologists, but these assumptions are always dependent
for verification upon the facts as these are developed, and in themselves
form no part of a system. It is the thesis of the present paper that there
are no fundamental differences between the "schools" of experimental psy-
chology, and that the workers in this field, with all their minor differences^
form a homogeneous group comprising almost all psychologists.
Psychology
Sensory Processes. Psychological experience comes to us in patterns
130 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
closely woven in their spatial and temporal aspects, but from one experi-
ence to another certain aspects vary. A study of vision shows a series of
such variables, e.g., size, form, hue, location, brightness, contrast effects,
degrees of adaptation, etc. Auditory experiences vary in intensity, pitch,
timbre, volume, localization, etc. Other sense departments furnish ex-
periences which also have such variable aspects, and it is the problem of
"sense psychology" to determine (a) what variable aspects of experience
there are in each department of sense and (b) what variables in the stimu-
lus situations and in the neural processes are correlated with them.
The variable aspects of experience are often considered to be of different
orders, i.e., quality, intensity, extensity, duration, and sometimes others are
given a position of fundamental importance in the sense that they are
essential to all experience and that their correlates are presumably to be
discovered in essential variables of the sense-organ and neural impulses,
while such aspects as form, bidimensional and tridimensional localization,
size, timbre, and others are accepted as mere complications of such processes.
Such distinctions are made upon bases unsatisfactory to many psychologists
and wholly repudiated by others. It is of no practical importance for us
here because, regardless of preconceived ideas as to what category a particu-
lar variable aspect belongs in, the facts, when determined, are complete
in themselves and are unaltered by any classification adopted. One example
must sufEce : The volume of auditory experiences has been held by some to
be a variable aspect which is to be "explained" by finding a correlate in
the functions of the sense-organ. By others it has been held to be a com-
plication of experience of the order of partials and entirely explainable upon
a basis of the spread or deflections of the sound waves and as a com-
plexity in the neural impulses. A determination of the facts will show the
true relation. The problem of determining this relation is the same
whether or not, in advance, we recognize a difference in kind between vari-
ables.
The concept of "sensation" is built primarily upon the basis of inde-
pendent variables, a sensation being a collocation of such aspects. Among
those who use this concept, the variables are spoken of as "attributes" of
the sensation. It is highly doubtful whether any psychologist has ever main-
tained that experience occurs in such simplified forms, but it has been
reasoned that our ordinary meaningful experiences result from a build-
ing up of such collocations into definite patterns which make up the
experiences. Such a type of analysis or synthesis needs much to
justify itself, it having no obvious justification and comprising a possible
source of error. Inasmuch as this attempt purports to portray any real
existence for such sensations we may say that it has definitely failed be-
cause we are unable to find such units either on the stimulus— neural-re-
ponse side or on the side of psychological experience. The treatment of
sensory data under the concept of sensation necessarily involves an as-
sumption of the conventional division of the subject between the existence
of such collocations and the principles of organization or association (per-
ception, memory) working between them. The surrender of the concept
JOHN PAUL NAFE 131
presumes the occurrence of psychological experience already organized and
hence exposing a fallacy in the three-fold division of the field. Recently
the tendency among psychologists has been to accept the second position
and consequently to assume that any principles of spatial or temporal
organization involved will appear in the final determination of the sen-
sory processes themselves.
It is true that in the study of sense psychology we have not as yet evolved
a theory that is generally satisfactory for a single one of the sense de-
partments, yet the facts are accumulating steadily and as long as this is the
case we are entitled to continue to believe it quite possible that the true
relations between stimulus conditions, neural activity, and psychological
experience will become known. More remote, perhaps, is the hope that
with the solution of these problems we shall receive some indication as to the
essential nature of the principles of organization by which such processes,
as psychological experiences, are bound into unitary wholes, spatially and
temporally, but such a hope is not necessarily more remote than that which
prompts us to the study of nonsense syllables and other conditions under
which the effects of such organization become patent.
It is not necessary to assume, although some individuals have made the
assumption, that psychology ends here. It is true that the interest of many
individuals does end with sensory psychology, but also it has been demon-
strated that experimental methods may be applied to the studies of per-
ception and the higher mental processes. Such studies will doubtless grow
in number, and there is room for only the most friendly cooperation be-
tween fields in which the results obtained may be of great importance to
the other. Many of us have been led to believe that the theories, when
formulated, would be simple, and many of us now think in terms of theories
that others of us believe to be greatly oversimplified. These expectations,
however, form no part of a system nor are they adhered to with any great
degree of tenacity. Every new fact discovered affects our expectations in
some degree and to some extent limits the possibilities.
The Higher Mental Processes. It has often been said that in approach-
ing the problems of psychology one should take a naive attitude toward
experience and with that opinion I am in thorough agreement, but the
ability to assume such a naive attitude requires much training and a back-
ground that is anything but naive. Every student of psychology goes
through a period of training upon the work which has gone on before
him and which, at the time, constitutes the body of the science. The things
he learns as the facts and problems of psychology are prejudicial, and his
future work must include a critical revaluation of these tenets as well as
attempts to carry the science ahead. Without any means at present of
relating the two or more problems of sensory processes and their organiza-
tion in space and time, psychology must include the different interests even
though we realize that the separation may prove to be real and even though
the interest of individuals engaged in the problems of these fields is not
all-inclusive.
If we now assume such a naive attitude toward experience, it appears that
132 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
throughout life we have, except possibly during our hours of sleeping, a
continuous stream of experiences. These experiences appear to organize
themselves or become organized, by principles of abstraction and generaliza-
tion, into what we call concepts and perceptions. In memory such previous
experiences irecur and in their reappearance seem to be reassembled according
to some principle of association or organization which makes of them
related units or wholes. Such memories or concepts are likely to be rep-
resented in a word or other symbol, the relationship between the two
(concept and word) being also a matter of association. The most re-
markable thing about such concepts is their paucity of psychological ex-
perience in relation to their great potentiality for associations. Our ideas
of independently variable aspects of experience depend altogether upon
such conceptualizing, otherwise we could not experience one blue as re-
lated to another, etc. Studies of such concepts and symbols tend to verify
our naive opinion as to the unity of experience in general but, so far, have
not clarified the laws by which we learn. Studies of related phenomena,
such as the conditioned reflex, also verify without clarifying the basic prin-
ciples.
Perception. There has been a well-defined tendency among many psy-
chologists to exclude from the subject-matter of the science all phenomena
which are affected by or are dependent upon memory. Helmholtz, Wundt,
and, to some extent, Titchener are identified with this tendency. It is
very difficult to denote a class of experiences which are independent of
memory. The sensation (Helmholtz' Perzeption) was invented for this
purpose, and, while sensations, so far, seem to be comparatively harmless
in a study of correlations between variable aspects of experience and their
physical and physiological conditions, the acceptance of sensation as an
analyzable element of experience cannot be carried into the study of the
higher mental processes without serious implications. If we conceive of
the higher mental processes or of perceptions as being formed by adding
sensations together, a concept common to this group, we are at a loss for
experimental evidence with which to bolster our view, and there is much
evidence to confute it, e.g., after-image, adaptation, movement, etc.
If, in a given experience, we attempt to determine what aspects are
independent of memory, we are again at a loss. Spatial and temporal as-
pects are obviously so affected. Intensities, if the studies of lifted weights
are to be accepted as evidence, and even qualities, according to the studies
upon memory color, may also be so affected. Titchener has gone to some
length to demonstrate that "psychological process" is separable from any
particular "meaning" (memory), but no one has shown that any experience
at all comes to us entirely free from meaning. Titchener has also attempted
to clear the temporal and spatial aspects of experience of the taint of obvious
meaning by reducing them to "mere" duration and extensity, but it must
be objected that if he has, by introducing such terms, made these aspects
less than temporal and spatial he has not met the situation, and if he has
only simplified the particular cases, acknowledging, as he does, that our
concepts of time and space are essentially meaningful, he has only made
them apparently clear of meaning by such simplification.
JOHN PAUL NAFE 133
The theoretical implications of these considerations are far reaching.
Even the merest speck upon a neutral field, of undefined extensity and
undetermined duration, cannot be regarded as "simple" for, if another speck
appears within certain temporal and spatial limits, the first spot will
demonstrate one of its potentialities by itself moving into the second posi-
tion.
At this point it becomes apparent that our three inherited problems of
sensation, perception, and memory must be modified. We do not yet
know the nature of the principles of association or how many such prin-
ciples there may be, but it becomes obvious that there will be no solution of
sensory problems without a solution of one or more of the others.
The term perception, when used in a sense not applicable to the fore-
going discussion, is usually conceived of as a cross-section of experience in
time. As such it is an analyzed unit similar, except in complexity, to the
sensation, and if we attempt a synthesis of experience by adding such per-
ceptions we must meet the same objections that are raised against the simi-
lar treatment of sensations.
The type of neural theory accepted by most psychologists as a. working
hypothesis involves specialized receptor-organs, none of which has as yet
been adequately described. These organs, however, are presumed to ini-
tiate series of impulses over the individual fibers, which are considered to be
insulated from each other, and the fibers are supposed to carry these series
of impulses to the central nervous system. At this point most theories lose
whatever specific character they have so far maintained. The nature of
the functional activity of the cortex and central nervous system generally
is so little known that only vague possibilities have, for the most part, even
been outlined. Analytical theories have created a well-defined tendency
to speak of such activity as though there were a one-to-one correlation
between individual fibers and points within the central nervous system
and as though, Within this central station, there were an additive process
of some nature which (almost pictorially) represents the stimulus situa-
tion. The tendency to theorize within this field, however, is not great,
the more general tendency being to await the discovery of sufficient facts
upon which to base a theory that may prove to be a workable hypothesis.
The amount of work that has been done upon perception and the higher
mental processes does not at all reflect the importance of these subjects.
The phenomenological descriptions of experience that have been made for
the purpose of determining the more general principles are few, and much
of the work, such as that done upon illusions, has not yet been related to
the subject-matter of the rest of the science. The work upon memory
and learning has been much greater in amount than the work upon per-
ception, but here again the lack of agreement between statements of funda-
mental principles is very noticeable.
The greatest present need of psychology is a restatement of specific
problems in terms more consistent with the known facts than the present
separation into sensory processes and principles of unification, such a re-
statement as will give direction to experimental work and create more
enthusiasm for it.
134 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
Behaviorism
Behaviorism, in spite of numerous other definitions, constitutes an at-
tempt to describe the facts and laws underlying our concept of "mental
life" in terms which do not involve "mind" or "consciousness." Hence the
divergence between the behaviorists and the psychologists runs to the terms
of description, not to the problem itself.
Although the study of stimulus-response apparently leaves little room
for the separation of subject-matter into sensation, perception, and learning,
yet in their formulation of specific problems such a separation is tacitly
admitted. Thus we see in the general problems of discrimination a parallel
to the psychological study of sensory processes, in form discrimination a
parallel to the problems of perception, and in the work on the learning
process a parallel to our third problem. The essential sameness of prob-
lem is brought out again in their acceptance and enthusiastic prosecution
of the work upon conditioning responses where the methods used and the
results so far attained are a continuation of the pre-existing work upon
association and learning. It is just because of the fundamental identity
of the two schools in the matter of problems that behaviorism remains a
branch of experimental psychology rather than being identified with the
biological sciences.
Watson, in his textbook published in 1919 (8, pp. 38lf.), made intro-
spection a special case of behavior, i.e., a verbal response. The enunciation
of this position, which is generally accepted by behaviorists, completed the
identification of the two branches by making the facts of the psychologists,
if properly reworded, acceptable to the behaviorist, and his results in turn
acceptable to the psj^chologist although they may, for the psychologist, carry
inferences as to conscious processes not admitted by the behaviorist him-
self. For the behaviorist, then, the study of stimulus-nervous-process—
experience-reaction is modified by the elimination of experience, but the
problems studied are the same and results of the two types of workers are
interchangeable.
Some behaviorists may go so far as to deny the existence of consciousness,
even for themselves. Whether or not this is the case is unimportant be-
cause (a) it is a negative hypothesis and (b) such a position is not es-
sential to the movement nor characteristic of it. A theoretical perfection
of the behavioristic position would not so much as raise the issue. Much
more often is the belief expressed, as an objection to the method of the
psychologists, that a study of consciousness does not admit of objective
observation.^
Practically the movement has had and continues to have a very great
influence. The tendency of the psychologists to limit themselves to the
field of sensation and the tendency of the behaviorists to enter the field
This objection was answered for another generation by E. Mach (6). It has
recently been fully met by W. Kohler and will not be presented again here (S).
I am fully in accord with the views the two authors express upon this subject
and am of the opinion that logically Kohler has disposed of the matter.
JOHN PAUL NAFE 135
of learning, etc., where the existence of consciousness is, for the present,
almost an academic question, has avoided much of the useless conflict
which at one time seemed possible. The practical effect of the move-
ment, however, is not our present concern. Polemics on both sides have
often been more confusing than enlightening, systematically, because they
come from many individuals and stress the matters that seem of im-
portance to them rather than the essentials of systematic position. When
two "schools" can use each other's data, the separation is not great. The
answer to the behaviorists is, of course, "go ahead." It might be quite
worth while if we should all turn behaviorist, now and then, for a time.
If such a system can be worked out, it would be an accomplishment of
the first order.
Up to the present time the systematic position of the behaviorists has
weakened, although in influence, as judged by the numbers interested,
it has rapidly gained ground. Kohler, in his work upon apes, found
that the behavior of these animals could not be adequately described in
terms of the S-R formula (4), Hunter, working with raccoons in the
double-alternation maze, found a similar situation (3). Kohler hypo-
thecates "insight" as an x in the formula S-{x)-Rj which resembles
the formula often written for the psychologists, S-{C)-R where C
represents consciousness, and Kohler shows no reluctance in inferring the
essential similarity of his x and the C of the other formula. Hunter posits
"symbolic processes" as an x in the formula of the behaviorists, but he does
not suggest the identity of his x with consciousness and resists Kohler's "in-
sight" as an explanatory concept.
In the reaction against the work of Romanes and the dilettantes with
animals, Lloyd Morgan enunciated his now well-known "law of par-
simony." The law requires, in the promotion of a theory, the simplest
hypothesis necessary to contain the facts. Under the influence of the re-
action against dilettanteism, this law was interpreted to forbid the in-
ference of consciousnses in animals, and, inasmuch as such an interpre-
tation fell in with the program of the behaviorists, i.e., to describe our
mental concepts without introducing consciousness, little protest was raised.
Protests have been heard since and these often to the effect that it is
greater economy to assume that animals are alike in kind, varying only
in degree, than it is to posit one principle to govern for human adults
and another to govern for all other animals. This point seems to be
well taken. In regard to the more recent matter, there is no obvious
reason why we should assume that Kohler's "insight" and Hunter's
"symbolic processes" are not of the same nature; and the lack of economy
in assuming that either is different from the one such element we know
in ourselves, i.e., consciousness, becomes apparent.
Gestalttheorie
In the development of Gestalttheorie we find no such startling differ-
ence as in behaviorism. Upon the constructive side of the theory, upon
its growth, etc., there is much that might be said, but here again we are
136 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930 ,
\
principally interested in differences in system. To clarify this issue we
shall consider some of the objections which have been offered in this con-
nection against psychology proper. For the sake of specificity we may
take Kohler as representative of the group, and, if the following comments
seem to constitute an adverse criticism, we must bear in mind the very
limited nature of the discussion. The particular points urged by Kohler
do not all, I believe, go to a difference in system but to matters of fact
and the manner in which our accepted hypotheses affect the formulation
of problems for the future. Specifically, among others, Kohler objects to
the following matters:
1) The attempt to analyze experience into elements (sensations).
2) The specific theories of sense with which psychologists are now deal-
ing. He offers a substitute.
3) The overemphasis given the doctrine of meaning.
4) The elimination of the problems of "organization" because of the
doctrine of meaning.
5) Associationism as a "special and theoretical concept."
1) The first point has been discussed at length under a previous head-
ing. It seems hardly to be an issue between the two schools because of
the tendency on the part of so many psychologists to deal directly with
variable aspects of experience without recourse to fictional elements. It
is rather an issue between groups of psychologists where the adherents of
Gestalttheorie are all on one side of the argument and other psychologists
are divided in their opinions. The substitute offered by Kohler appears
in the discussion of the next three points and, like all hypotheses, it must
stand or fall on its own merits-
2) The current specific theories of the psychologists have much to be
said for them, the neurological facts, as we know them, giving more sup-
port to the current theories than to Gestalttheorie, although there are not
a sufficient number of these facts now known to force opinion to either
theory. Gestalttheorie pictures an uninsulated system of nerve-fibers, and
these, with the stimulating situation, form a single system. For the ner-
vous system, the result of stimulation is a redistribution of electrical po-
tentials within the system toward a new point of equilibrium. This re-
arrangement or the rearranging of the system (not aggregates) is the cor-
relate of consciousness and the determiner of other responses. Current
theory, on the other hand, assumes small units within the sensory receptor-
organ which are, in practice, functional units as well. Such units connect
with fibers which conduct separate impulses to the central nervous sys-
tem. From here on such theories are very indefinite but usually involve
the conception of a one-to-one correlation between the fibers and points
within the central nervous system. Inadequacies of the current theories are
apparent to all. Kohler cites the visual and tactual perceptions of move-
ment against current theory, and the citation constitutes a telling blow
regardless of other questions of fact that have entered into these problems,
e.g., Dimmick's gray flash. Yet graphic records of the impulses traveling
over nerve-fibers show independent rhythms in the series of impulses, and
JOHN PAUL NAFE 137
there are possibilities of motor responses and other phenomena which tell
against the Gestalt hypothesis. Alternatives are obvious, but the diffi-
culties vrhich they may bring are not fully worked out. Even with an in-
sulated system of fibers, however, Kohler's electrical brain-field may be
possible.
The acceptance of Kohler's theory as a working hypothesis is a matter
of personal evaluation. The acceptance of the theory as the ultimate facts
•of the case is premature, and I should not accuse the most ardent supporter
of Gestalttheorie of having gone as far as that. It is a theory in only a
very general sense, much more it is a suggestion of the type of theory that
is required. It may or may not be a shrewd guess but it requires some-
thing other than acquiescence; it must be verified and demonstrated to be
the fact.
3) The objection to the concept of meaning follows from the above
discussion and returns us to the matter of perception and the higher men-
tal processes. Kohler does not repudiate the problem but objects to the
manner in which it is treated. The distinction between meaning and
process has varied in presentation with different individuals, and in order
to deal concretely we may select one person whose views are typical. I
choose Titchener because he is more explicit than many of the others.
For Titchener, then, in a perceptual experience we have given, ex-
perientially, a group of sensory experiences (an object). About this
sensory data are grouped, so as to form a distinctive pattern, secondary
sensations (eye-movements, bodily attitudes, etc.) and images (previous
experience, memory). Added to or sometimes supplanting this fringe of
added data are certain "mental habits" (involving symbols such as words,
musical notes, etc.) which may supplant or supplement the secondary sen-
sations or images or both. All such occurrences are distinguished from
the sensory core of the experience and are designated "context." "Mean-
ing, psychologically, is always context" (7). Meanings are often con-
scious but are not necessarily so ; they may be "carried in purely phj'^siologi-
cal terms." Although Titchener denies at the outset that perception is an
additive process in the sense that the nature of the perception depends upon
the added elements entirely, yet his treatment of the subject stresses that
part of it almost to the exclusion of "arrangement," and it seems always
to be an additive process in that the meaning of any particular thing de-
pends upon what accrues or is added to the sheer experience by way of con-
text.*
Meaning itself is a matter of logic, not psychology, and as such is legiti-
mately debarred from psychology although it has a representation in con-
sciousness (or out of it) which is subject-matter for psychology. The
position is difficult to clarify. There is a difference to be noted between
experience actually presented and what that experience means. The ex-
'Under his discussion of association Titchener deliberately selects the additive
hypothesis. He contrasts the theories by analogy, "electric magnet" (organiza-
tion?) vs. "string of beads," and chooses the latter.
138 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
perience itself is core and is purely sensory, but the examples he cites are
not of a purely sensory nature, e.g., lines, moving branches, etc. They
are already patterned complexes, perceptions. The fringe of secondary
sensations and images is obviously a restatement of associationism, and the
"mental habits" or their neurological counterparts, "brain habits," are given
to account for the fact that our meaningful reactions are not aWays, or
perhaps not even usually, represented in consciousness.
Titchener accepts the implications for psychology, i.e., (a) that con-
sciousness is always a temporal affair and must receive a longitudinal as
well as a transverse treatment; (b) we must, as part of our problem,
find the physiological correlates for these experiences; and (c) we can
never lose sight of the effect of previous experience upon the present con-
sciousness (or reaction).
Kohler does not make clear his precise objections, but one may suppose
that they go to the matter of positing sensory data plus context to give us
our perceptual experiences and that rather we should think of our ex-
perience of the present as itself modified by such previous experiences and
with possibilities of its own for the future. Facts are cited in support of 1
such a view, e.g., visual and tactual perception of movement, but he helps ]
us little further. jj
It is not easy to see just how present experience and past experience are 1
so closely woven, and the fact that particular meanings may so easily be
added to or disjoined from a given experience has inclined many to an
additive hypothesis. Gestalttheorie offers no solution and we are left with
the problem exactly as it was.
4) In treating the matter of elimination of the problems of organiza-
tion because of the doctrine of meaning we cannot use Titchener as an
example because in this matter he takes a position similar to that of Kohler.
We may cite Helmholtz as an example of those who would reject the
problem of memory in connection with a study of sensory data.
If we picture a system simple enough, where a given stimulus (object,
not situation) produces a given effect upon an organism and if, psychologi-
cally, such effects consist of sensations which are added to form percep-
tions and as perceptions are continued in time to form experience, then we
might designate the experience as psychological and the principle by which
the organization occurs as something outside or beyond psychology. This
is, essentially, the position of certain groups and is the position which at-
tempts to force the problems of learning (organization) outside of psy-
chology. To such an outline we can, at present, say only that we are un-
convinced as to the existence of such a system and cite those facts now avail-
able against it. The position is unsatisfactory to many psychologists, but
the differences of opinion are objected to, not as matters of system, but
as matters of fact and oversimplified hypotheses. The position is not
peculiar to Gestalttheorie as the great amount of work upon perception,
learning, memory, etc., testifies.
5) Gestalttheorie gives up associationism "as a special and theoretical
concept," but the specific complaint seems to stress the attempt to make
JOHN PAUL NAFE 139
the laws, as at present outlined, a sufficient explanation and especially the
tendency to offer spatial and temporal contiguity alone for such a purpose.
Kohler suggests, with emphasis, "that neighborhood in space and time in-
fluences association only insofar as it determines organization," and he con-
cludes that "association depends upon organization because association is
just an after-effect of organized processes." This implies that association
is the fact, and organization is the process or principle. While such a
redefinition may be justifiable or even necessary because of the connotation
that has grown around association, for many psychologists association re-
fers to the effective process or principle of unification regardless of what
that process may prove to be. Association, so regarded, may be identical
with Kohler's "organization." It seems, from the treatment accorded it,
that organization may be successive or simultaneous, is affected by temporal
and spatial contiguity, etc. The parallel with association seems to be too
close to require two names.
Let it not be supposed that in the preceding paragraphs I have attempted
to dispose of any of the questions treated. In each case we find a question
upon which all experimental psychologists may have, and many do have,
opinions. They are not questions peculiar to Gestalttheorie nor answered
under some general formula held by any single school. The issues raised
are the live issues of psychology and, however much we may owe Gestalt-
theorie for forcing these problems to the fore, in no instance do we find the
suggestion of a basis for a separate Gestalt Psychologie. Much or little
as the Gestalt hypothesis has advanced the treatment of the subject of
psychology, it has in no sense fundamentally altered it.
Resume
Between experimental psychologists we find a difference of opinion as
to the possibility and advisability of describing our concepts of mental life
without involving consciousness and we find a division of opinion upon
the type of theory which, in the light of known facts, is most valuable as
a working hypothesis. If we had dug deeper, we might have found many
other differences but none of them of a kind which divides the field in any
real sense.
Among the individuals who call themselves psychologists we might find
some whose primary interest is in quite other problems, the description
of function and the discovery of purpose. Some investigators with such
interests use experimental methods to some extent and some, whose in-
terests are more scientific, unfortunately obscure the nature of their work
in failing to state it in clear and unequivocal terms. In actual numbers
these exceptional cases are few, but psychologists have not only given the
outside world to understand, but many are themselves convinced, that
systematic differences divide psychologists into factions which are not able
to work together. This is far from being the true state of affairs, for with
few exceptions psychologists form a homogeneous group whose interests,
problems, and methods are similar. There are no fundamental differences
between the experimental groups. Polemics directed against systematic
140 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
positions or imagined systematic differences, if not an excuse for not work-
ing, serve effectively to prevent our principal efforts from being directed toi
that end and comprise by far too large a part of our literature.
REFERENCES
1. Bentley, M. The psychologies called "structural." Part VI in Psychologies
of 1925. Worcester, Mass.: Clark Univ. Press, 1926. Pp. 383-412.
2. Boring, E. G. A history of experimental psychology. New York: Century,
1929. Pp. xvi+699.
3. Hunter, W. S. The behavior of raccoons in a double alternation temporal
maze. J. Genet. Psychol, 1928, 35, 374-388.
4. KoHLER, W. The mentality of apes. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1925.
Pp. 342.
5. . Gestalt psychology. New York: Liveright, 1929. Pp. x-f403.
6. Mach, E. Beitrage zur Analyse der Empfindungen. 1886. (Trans. 1897.)
7. TiTCHENER, E. B. A text-book of psychology. New York: Macmillan, 1921.
Pp. 552.
S. Watson, J. B. Psychology from the standpoint of a behaviorist. Philadelphia:
Lippincott, 1919. Pp. 429.
PART V
CONFIGURATIONAL PSYCHOLOGIES
CHAPTER 8
SOME TASKS OF GESTALT PSYCHOLOGY
Wolfgang Kohler
University of Berlin
In one of his papers Wertheimer (9) has described observations of the
following type:
• • O • 9 9 •
FIGURE 1
1) You look on a series of spots (Figure 1) the distances of which are
alternately of a certain larger and smaller width. If I say that these spots
appear spontaneously in groups of two (which "belong together") so that
the smaller of the two distances is always in the interior of one group,
and that beyond the larger distance a new group begins, etc., this statement
of the phenomenon is perhaps not very impressive.
I therefore introduce a change, substituting straight parallel lines for
the spots (Figure 2), at the same time increasing the difference of the two
FIGURE 2
distances a little. The phenomenon of group formation is now a little
more striking. How "real" it is one feels when trying to form other
groups in the series, namely, so that any two lines with the larger distance
between them form one group and the shorter distance is the space between
two consecutive groups. You see that this requires a special effort. To
form one of the new groups may be rather easy; but to make the change
for all of them, i.e., for the whole series simultaneously, is more than I,
for instance, can achieve. Most people never will get this other group-
ing as clear, stable, and optically real as the former one; and in the first
moment of relaxation or fatigue, one instantly sees again the spontaneously
existing groups as before. It is as if some forces were holding the pairs
of nearer lines together.
Is distance in itself the decisive factor? Two spots or two parallel
lines may be regarded as rather poor boundaries, enclosing space between
them. In our figures they do so better when nearer together, so that we
might perhaps formulate our principle in the statement that the members
[143]
144 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
of a series better enclosing space between them tend to form groups. This
new principle seems to work because it covers the fact that the parallel
straight lines form more striking and stable groups than the spots. Evi-
dently they enclose space between them better than do the spots. And
again, we can change our last figure by adding some short horizontal lines
so that the larger space between the more distant parallels begins to be
better enclosed (Figure 3). The result is that it becomes easy to see
FIGURE 3
the pairs of more distant lines with their annexes as groups, even before
the open distance between those annexes is made smaller than the dis-
tances of the parallels nearer to each other. But let us be cautious. Per-
haps we have two different principles, that of distance and that of "en-
closing."
2) In the next figure all members of the series follow each other at
equal distances, but there is a regular change in the properties of those
members (Figure 4). It does not matter whether the difference is of
oo«««oo«««oo«««
FIGURE 4
this type or a difference between yellow and black, for instance. Even
in a case like this (Figure 5) the same phenomenon is observed, namely,
FIGURE 5
that the members of the same "quality" (whatever it may be) form groups,
and that a new group begins where we have a change in the quality of
members. Again, one may convince himself of the reality of this observa-
tion by trying to see the series in another grouping. Most people are
not able to see the series as solidly organized throughout when trying to
enforce any of the other mathematically possible formations of groups.
3) The description of our observations is not yet complete. If we
look back upon the series of parallels, we see that the formation of groups
is not an affair of those parallels only. The whole area in a group, half
WOLFGANG KOHLER
145
enclosed between the parallels nearer to each other, white like the sur-
rounding paper, still looks different from it and also different from the
area between two consecutive groups. In a group there is a certain aspect
of "solidity," or we might even say: "there is something"; whereas between
the groups and around the whole series we have "emptiness" or "there is
nothing." This difference, described and discussed very carefully by
Rubin (7), who calls it the difference between the characters of "figure"
and "ground," becomes the more remarkable since the whole group, in-
cluding its half enclosed white area, appears to "stand out" in space from
the surrounding ground. At the same time we may remark that the
parallels, which, as it were, solidify the enclosed area and lift it a little
from the ground, "belong to this area" in one more meaning: They are
the edges of this enclosed area, but are not in the same manner edges of
the indifferent ground outside the group. ^
There is more to describe in the aspect of even such a simple field of
vision. I hasten, however, to carry our observations on into a new direc-
tion.
4) The groups formed in the series of parallels included pairs of them.
We add third parallels in the midst of each group and find, as one may
have expected beforehand, that these three lines so close together still form
groups and that the grouping is even much more striking now than before
(Figure 6). We may add two more parallels in each group between the
three already drawn. Not much of white is left now in the group and
FIGURE 6
FIGURE 7
the stability of group formation is still increased (Figure 7). A few
steps more, and the areas of our groups are uniform black rectangles. There
would be three of them; everybody looking upon the page would see these
"three dark forms." And our gradual procedure has taught us that to
see the black content of each of those areas as "one thing" united in itself,
^Similar laws are found to apply to the formation of units in temporal series
[Wertheimer (9), Koffka (1)].
146 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
outstanding as one from the ground, may be regarded as a very extreme
case of the formation of group units which we first observed. It is not
a geometrical truism — it has nothing to do with pure geometry — that con-
tinuous uniformly colored areas or spots in differently colored homogene-
ous surroundings appear as wholes or units; it is a primitive experience
in vision. Where neighbors of equal properties are given, groups are
formed as a rule. This principle was seen to work with increased effect
as the density of the area of the group is increased. It cannot stop working
when the group becomes a continuum. (I hardly have to mention that
our uniformly colored wholes might have thousands of different forms,
usual ones like the rectangle, to which we are accustomed, or quite un-
usual ones like some spot of ink on the paper or a little cloud in the sky.)
We began our discussion with the observation of groups because it is
easier to acknowledge the problem there as a problem. To be sure, the
unit of our black rectangles is much more stable than that of our first spots
and parallels; but we are so used to the fact that uniformly colored areas
surrounded by other color appear as segregated wholes that the problem
here is not grasped so easily. Most of the observations of Gestalt psy-
chology are of this kind: They touch facts of such general occurrence in
our everyday life, that we have difficulty in seeing anything remarkable
in them.
Again the progress of our observations obliges us to look back. We
formed series of spots or straight lines and observed their grouping. Now
we have learned that these members of our series themselves contain the
same problem or phenomenon in so far as they already are extended and
uniformly colored units. The consequence is that we find formation of
units in different "orders" or "ranks," e. g,, straight lines (lowest order)
and groups of them (higher order). If a unit exists it may still become
part of a larger unit or group of a higher rank.
5) With its "being one," the continuous unit has retained another
property of the discontinuous group: It still has the "figure" character
as something solid, outstanding from the empty ground. Imagine now
that we substitute for the rectangle, printed in black, a black rectangular
paper, covering the same area and carefully pressed against the page. Evi-
dently nothing of importance is changed; this paper is "one" and has the
same character of something solid. Imagine further that this paper begins
to grow in the direction at right angles to its surface and the surface of
the page. It becomes thicker and is soon a black block or "thing" in
space. Again nothing functionally important is changed. But we see
that the application of our observations has become much larger. Wher-
ever "a thing" is visible as "one" and as something solid, the same prin-
ciples are concerned which we first became acquainted with in the forma-
tion of groups. There are still other influences working in our apprecia-
tion of things as units and as solid, but we have no reason to think that
those principles of primitive group formation we were considering (and
WOLFGANG KOHLER 147
Others I could not mention here) lose their force when we have to do
with things in three dimensions instead of with spots or rectangles.^
Our observations have followed a line which leads away from familiar
ideas. One of the fundamental methods of natural sciences is analysis.
The psychologist, therefore, confronted with a complex field of vision, for
example, feels naturally inclined to analyze this field into smaller and
simpler entities whose properties he may study with more ease and with
more hope of clear results than an immediate consideration of the whole
field would yield. Generally he does not ask himself what this procedure
purports and if, perhaps, the term analysis is rather ambiguous. He sim-
ply analyzes down to very small parts of the sensory field — let us call
them the "sensations" — which do not contain differences, which show a
minimum of area, and so seem to constitute the simplest parts of the field.
Somehow, it is true, our observations also meant an analysis of the field.
In our analysis, however, we have followed the natural and evident struc-
ture of the field instead of dissolving it theoretically and arbitrarily into
minute local things which nobody ever sees. It is not arbitrary and ab-
stract thinking that makes those groups or spots or rectangles or things
in my visual field. I find them there as optical realities not less real than
their color, black, or white, or red, etc. As long as my visual field remains
the same (is not changed by internal or external influences), there is
little doubt about what belongs in one of those units and what does not
so belong. And if we have found that in the visual field there are units
of different rank, a group, for instance, containing several spots, the
larger unit containing smaller ones of still stronger unitedness, exactly the
same occurs in physics where the molecule, as one larger objective unit
(defined by a comparative break of interconnection at its limits), contains
smaller objective units, the atoms, the interior of which is again very much
more strongly united than is the molecule. There is no contradiction
and no vagueness in objective units containing smaller units. And as it
remains an objective fact in the physical material, where the boundaries
of its units and perhaps of sub-units are, so in the visual field no arbitrary
analyzing thought should interfere with observation: Experience is spoiled
if we begin to introduce artificial sub-divisions where real units and
boundaries of one or the other rank are open and clear before us. This
is the principal reason why I think that a concept like sensation is almost
a danger. It tends to absorb our attention, obscuring the fact that there
are observable units and sub-units in the field. Because the very moment
we give up our naivete in description and theory and think of the field in
terms of unreal elements, these unreal little things appear to our thought
side by side, indifferently filling space, some of one, some of another color
or brightness, etc., and the observable units with their observable bounda-
ries do not occur in this pseudo-description.
^"Things" again may become members of groups of a higher order. Instead of
spots we might have a series of men and still observe the formation of groups. In
architecture one knows enough about that (compare the grouping of pillars, win-
dows, statues, etc.).
148
PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
The most dangerous property of a concept like "sensation" consists in
the fact that such local elements are very easily regarded as depending upon
local processes in the nervous system, each of which would be determined
by one local stimulus, in principle. Our observations are in complete dis-
agreement with this "mosaic theory" of the field. How can local pro-
cesses which are independent of and indifferent to each other be at the
same time organized into larger units of well-observable extent in some
areas? How, again, can relative break of continuity at the well-observable
limits of those areas be understood, since these limits are not limits every-
where between little pieces of a mosaic, but appear only where one group
or unit ends? The hypothesis of independent little parts is unable to give
an explanation. All the concepts we found necessary above for the
description of the field have no relation whatever to the conception of in-
dependent local elements. And more concretely: Where our groups or
units are formed can certainly not be deduced by considering the condi-
tions in one point, then independently in the next, etc. Only a considera-
tion which takes account of how the local conditions for the whole field
relate to each other begins to approach an understanding of those facts.
Not the local white along a white line drawn on a black field makes this
line a real optical unit in the field; there is no specific unit and no line
before the surroundings have a different color or brightness. This differ-
ence of stimulation around as against equality of stimulation within the
line must, in the given arrangement, be the fact which produces a specific
unit. And in the same manner for units of higher order: Not the in-
dependent or absolute conditions in one of our parallels, then the condi-
tions in the next one, make them form one group, but that these lines are
equal, different from the ground, and so near to each other — three pre-
requisites which again show the decisive role of relations of local condi-
tions. And let us be careful not to forget the ground. Because, if a cer-
tain group is formed, say two parallels, being half a centimeter from each
other, I have only to draw two more parallels on the outside of this group
and much nearer to the first parallels than these are to each other, and the
first group is destroyed, two other groups being formed by the parallels
FIGURE 8
which are now nearest to each other (Figure 8). Only so long as we
had uniform white in the neighborhood of our first group did this group'
exist. I change conditions in this neighborhood and what was the in-
terior of a unit now becomes a gap between two others. One more con-
sequence follows immediately: The characters of "figure" and "ground"
WOLFGANG K5HLER 149
are so absolutely dependent upon the formation of units in the field that,
since these units cannot be deduced from an aggregate of independent local
states, neither can the appearance of an area as "figure" or "ground" be so
deduced. And still another fact as argument: We draw two parallels
and produce a group; we draw another congruent pair, but considerably
more distant from the first than the distance between the first lines is,
and go on increasing the length of our series. The result is that all the
groups in the series become more solid than each of them would be when
given alone. Even over distances of such an extent the conditions in one
place have an influence on what happens in another place, and vice versa.
The fact that it is not the local properties of given stimuli but the rela-
tions of these properties to each other (the total constellation of stimuli,
to use a better word) that are decisive in the formation of units suggests
at once the idea that dynamic intercourse in the field decides about what
becomes a unit, what is excluded from it, what is "figure," and what falls
back as mere "ground." Indeed, at the present time not many psycholo-
gists will deny that, acknowledging those real units, etc., in the visual
field, we have at once to draw the adequate consequences for that part of
the brain the processes of which are corresponding to our field of vision.
The units, sub-units, boundaries, the difference of "figure" and "ground"
must exist there as physiological realities (8, 10, 2). Remarking, now,
that relative distance and relation of qualitative properties are the main
factors determining the formation of units, we remember that exactly
such factors ought to be decisive for it if it were the effect of dynamic
intercourse in the physiological process throughout the field. Most physi-
cal and chemical interaction we know of depends upon the relation of
properties and on mutual distance between the material in space. Now,
differences of stimulation produce points, lines, areas, of different chemical
reaction and in certain spatial relations to each other on the retina. If
there is transverse connection between the longitudinal conductors of the
optic nerve somewhere in the optic sector of the nervous system, mutually
dynamic intercourse ought to depend upon the qualitative, spatial, and
other relations of qualitative properties and space which, at a given time,
exist in the total optic process, streaming up to or through the brain. No
wonder, if we find that the phenomena of grouping, etc., show direct de-
pendence upon those relations.
Intimately related to the existence of real units and boundaries in the
field of vision we find the fact that there are "forms" in this field. It was
practically impossible to exclude them from the foregoing discussion be-
cause, wherever we see those units they have forms,^ this being the reason
why in the German terminology those units are called "Gestalten." Again,
the reality of forms in visual space is a fact which cannot be understood
from the standpoint that the visual field consists of independent local ele-
^I do not think that the term "configuration" is quite adequate as a translation
of the German word "Gestalt." The word configuration seems to mean elements
put together in a certain manner, and this is a functional idea which we must
carefully avoid.
ISO PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
merits. If there were elements of this kind forming a dense and perhaps
continuous mosaic as the "stuff" of the visual field, then we should have
no real forms in this field. Mathematically, of course, some aggregates
of them might be considered together, but that would not correspond to
the reality in which at a given time some concrete forms are simply there
in vision, not less than colors and brightnesses. And first of all, mathe-
matically, all imaginable patterns might be considered in such a field of
independent elements, whereas in vision quite individual forms are always
before us under given conditions (4). If, now, we examine these condi-
tions upon which the real forms depend, we naturally find again the quali-
tative and spatial relations of stimulation. Naturally, because the now
well-known units appear in the individual forms we are seeing, and we
had to realize previously that these units are somehow a function of those
relations. I remember from my own slow development in this respect
how difficult it is to make a sharp distinction between an aggregate of
stimuli, i.e., geometrically existent patterns of them, and visual forms as
realities. On this page there are certainly some black points as parts of
letters which, considered together, would be a large group of this real
FIGURE 9
form (Figure 9). Do we therefore see such a form as a visual reality?
Certainly not so long as so many other black spots are given between and
around them. But let those points be red and all people who are not
color-blind or half blind for forms by brain lesion would instantly see
this group as a form.
All this is not only true for forms in a plane or on the paper; it is as
much the truth for the things or objects in our surroundings. And so I
wish to warn against the misunderstanding that these problems of real
units and their forms might perhaps have some importance for aesthetics
or for other considerations of a supposedly higher level only, whereas they
were foreign to the practical stuff of everyday life. There is no object,
no man you have to deal with, whose visual reality is not a concrete demon-
stration of the same scientific situation.
We draw a physiological consequence: If there is dynamic intercourse
between the local processes in a system, they will influence and change each
other until equilibrium is reached in a stationary distribution. We were
treating visual fields in the state of rest. They must be the psychological
picture of a stationary equilibrium distribution in the corresponding pro-
cesses of the brain. There are enough cases in physics where a process
originating in a system under a certain set of conditions develops its sta-
tionary distribution in extremely short time. The time in which the equi-
librium of a visual process is developed must also be rather short. Be-
WOLFGANG KOHLER 151
cause, if we give a set of stimuli suddenly, say by projection, the phase of
"something happening," which we observe, has an extremely rapid appear-
ance, and in a moment we see the field, its units and their forms at rest.
In a state of stationary equilibrium, the field is by no means "dead."
The mutual stresses in the phase of field formation (which, of course, are
themselves interdependent) do not disappear when the stationary distri-
bution is accomplished. They have now (together with the processes)
only those intensities and directions everywhere in which they balance
each other. The total process in stationary distribution is still a store of
energy, distributed in the field.
Physiological theory has to solve two different problems with regard to
the described properties of the field of vision. These properties, as they
really are, involving dependence of the local state on relative properties of
stimulation in a wider range, including, further, the formation of units,
their forms, etc., have appeared almost marvelous, so that they often were
considered as the outcome of supernatural mental forces. The first task,
then, must be to show that, in the general functional aspect, properties of
this kind are far from unusual in physics. So the more general difficulty
is removed, by demonstrating a corresponding type of processes in exact
science, particularly if we can show that, under the circumstances given in
the optic sector of the nervous system, processes of this general type are
very likely to occur. When this is done, the second task will consist in
finding that individual kind of physical (or, if one prefers, physiological)
process which may be assumed to be the physiological reality underlying a
field of vision. This second task is by far the more difficult, given our
lack of physiological knowledge. We have hardly begun to seek our way
towards a solution of it, but at least one remark may be allowed even now.
In consequence of unequal stimulation in different areas of the retina,
different areas of a cross section of the optic sector contain unequal chemi-
cal reactions and so contain unequal chemical material in crystalloid and
colloid form. If these unequal areas are in functional contact, they cer-
tainly are not in equilibrium. There is "energy able to work" in the
system wherever areas of unequal properties have common borders. Here
in the contours must be the main source of energy for dynamical inter-
course. It would be so in physics or physical chemistry under correspond-
ing circumstances (2, pp. 1 ff., 185, 195 ff.).
Our assumption gives a physiological correlate for form as a visual
reality. From the standpoint of independent elementary processes such
a correlate could not be found. Their indifferent mosaic would contain
no real forms or, if you prefer, all imaginable but not real forms in each
case, 'namely, for a mind who would pick them out of the mosaic. Evi-
dently only a kind of process which cannot be split up into independent
local elements would be acceptable as a correlate of real form. Now, the
stationary equilibrium of the process which we assume to underlie the
field of vision is a distribution of stress and process in space^ which only
*The concept of space requires a special consideration here since in the brain
it cannot simply be measured in cm., cm.^, and cm.^ (2, pp. 232 ff.).
152 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
maintains itself as this whole. Therefore we make it our working hy-
pothesis that in all cases this distribution is the physiological correlate of
the space properties of vision and especially of form. Since our conception
of a physiological unit is necessarily relative in so far as any sharp de-
crease in the intimacy of dynamic intercourse at the boundaries of an area
shows its interior to be a real unit, we can without contradiction treat the
whole visual process as one for a given time, and still assert the formation
of specific {more intimately connected) units with their forms in it, de-
pending on the spatial constellation of stimuli.
It will help us to understand the intrinsic tendencies of Gestalt psy-
chology if we discuss a few of the tasks which it will have to solve in the
future. For example, we have evidence for believing that the coordina-
tion of certain simple motor reactions to a visual field depends directly on
our principles. If, in the stereoscope, one vertical line is exposed to one
eye and a second to the other eye so that with a given degree of conver-
gence of the two eyes the lines appear nearly parallel and at a rather short
distance from each other, we find them uniting into one line almost at once.
It is well known that in this case our eyes turn without our intention into
that degree of convergence which brings the two lines upon two corre-
sponding verticals of the two retinas, the two physiological processes be-
coming more intimately united under these circumstances than with the
previous degree of convergence. But we have already seen that parallel
lines near to each other (seen in a monocular field of vision, or both of
them with both eyes) form a group. It looks as if, under the conditions
given in our stereoscopic observation, the forces which keep two lines to-
gether in a group were accomplishing the same thing more thoroughly by
really uniting the parallels. An examination of the situation from the
standpoint of physics seems to show that such a thing might really occur.
We saw that in the equilibrium distribution of process the field is still full
of stresses which are for the moment in balance, but represent a store of
energy. So, in vision, there seems to be stress tending to bring the two
parallels together. In physics, if such a field is functionally connected
with movable parts, among whose movements some definite form of motion
would release the still existing stresses of the field, this movement will im-
mediately occur, produced by the energy of those stresses. These only
"waited" as it were, for an opportunity to let their energy work, for in-
stance, influencing movable parts in the direction of a better equilibrium.
The better equilibrium in physics lies always in the direction of those
stresses which tend to produce some change, but which in our physiologi-
cal case cannot do it directly in the field because the distance is too great.
If possible, then, they will do it by an innervation of the muscles of the
eyes as movable parts in the direction of release of their energy. There
is nothing supernatural in such an orderly physical process, no process with
or without detour can ever produce changes which are not directed toward
a more stable equilibrium of the whole system. We have only to adopt
this view in the case of the optical part of the brain and its nervous con-
nection with the muscles of the ej'eballs in order to find a new explanation
WOLFGANG KOHLER 153
of fixation movements which is founded on principles of Gestalt theory and
physics (3). Of course the hypothesis needs a careful working out for
the concrete conditions given in the nervous system and in the muscles of
the eyes.
Without any muscular reactions, two lines which are given separately
on the two retinas will fuse in the common field, if their distance in this
field is small fenough. This may be an effect of the same forces which,
according to our hypothesis, produce the fusion movement as well as the
grouping of such lines. In another paper I have tried to show how the
principle underlying these applications may also explain the phenomenon
of stroboscopic or "apparent" movement of two similar figures which are
given near to each other in appropriate succession.
So much for the visual field and the processes depending most directly
upon it. At present another extension of Gestalt psychology is developing
in the field of memory. It has been shown that the existence of a geo-
metrical pattern of stimuli on the retina does not at all determine whether
I see certain forms or not, because, if we change the surrounding pattern
or even our attitude only, the outcome may consist of quite different units
and forms. Therefore "recognizing" which in the majority of cases is
not a recognizing of color or brightness but rather of the form of a unit,
of an object, for instance, will one time occur, another time not, depend-
ing upon the principles we were discussing, i.e., upon the reality of units
and forms. Rubin has shown this in very impressive experiments.
The same thing occurs with "meaning" and with "reproduction." Cer-
tain stimuli and groups of stimuli will not produce anything at all before
the right unit or form, which acquired in previous experience a meaning
or a reproductive force, becomes a physiological and psychological reality.
Our conclusion will be that the traces of earlier experiences underlying
recognition and reproduction are organized in a manner which is quite
similar to the organization of those earlier experiences themselves. Other-
wise it would be difficult to understand why actual processes must be or-
ganized correspondingly, if recognition and reproduction are to be started
by them.
We cannot stop at this point, however. In a recent book (6) I have
given some reasons for assuming, as all Gestalt psychologists do, that the
concepts of association and reproduction themselves have to be reinterpreted
from the same point of view. Indeed, even Thorndike, whose attitude
regarding association is more conservative, seems to transform the concept
in such a manner that a certain "belonging together" is an absolute pre-
requisite, if an association is to be formed between two parts of our
experience.
The application which our principles may find in the case of reproduc-
tion is much less known. A few words will suffice, however, to elucidate
this point. The problem is this: Whatever the nature of an existing
association {AB) may be, there will not be a corresponding reproduction,
before a process A', sufficiently similar to A, has found its way to the trace
'of A. But why should A' come in functional contact with the trace of A
rather than with the traces of hundreds of other processes? If A' were
154 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
necessarily conducted by the same neurons which have been the ways of
A before, the explanation would be simple enough. We know, however,
that this is by no means a necessary condition and that A' will reproduce
B via A even if it enters the nervous system on different nerve paths.
Therefore a "machine theory" of reproduction becomes impossible and
reproduction must occur on a more dynamic basis which would tend to
bring A' in functional relation with a trace sufficiently similar to A' rather
than with other traces. But how may this selection of a corresponding
trace be effected? I do not pretend to know a full explanation. But
sometimes it may help in a science if we can at least unite one problem
with another. This seems to be possible here. Suppose that, in a visual
field, we have one figure in one place and a very similar figure in a second
place. If the space between and around the two figures is homogeneous
or filled by figures of a very different type, the pair of similar figures will
probably be seen as one group. This is nothing more than one of the
simplest observations about organization in the visual field. Furthermore,
in this case we are all confident that some more knowledge of the nervous
system will make it quite clear why similarity, as against surrounding
regions of other properties, makes two processes cooperate in one Ges-
amtgestalt, even though their distance be considerable. If this is not too
difficult a problem, the selection of the right trace, which may be called
the starting event in reproduction, will not remain an unsolved paradox
either. Because both problems seem to be but one in principle. The
only satisfactory idea about traces in the nervous system is the assump-
tion that processes leave behind sediments the structural properties of which
are more or less similar to those of the processes which they represent.
In the course of time these minute strata of earlier experience will be ac-
cumulated one upon the other; but some, and even a great many of them,
will survive the disturbances exerted upon them by all the following sed-
imentation and other influences. Our hypothesis, then, is simply that the
relation between a well-balanced trace A and an actual process A' , similar
to it, may be comparable with the relation between two similar processes in
the actual field of vision. The same reasons which bring about the func-
tional cooperation between these processes, excluding others of a different
character, would also tend to produce functional coherence between an ac-
tual process and a trace which is similar to it. This would be the
basis of recognition and, under favorable conditions, the beginning of
reproduction. If, thus, the selective properties of recognition and re-
production represent the same problem as is contained in the selective prop-
erties which we find in the formation of groups, a definite consequence
becomes obvious at once. The rules of grouping in perception will neces-
sarily be rules of recognition and reproduction, too. For instance,
precisely as the properties of the field between and around two similar
figures are essential for their forming a group, so the properties of the
traces which have been deposited after the trace A oi a. definite struc-
ture, and before the time of an actual process A', similar to this trace, will
be decisive for the functional coherence of A and A', i.e., for recognition and'
reproduction. We have begun to examine this hypothesis experimentally.
WOLFGANG KOHLER 155
About one other extension of Gestalt psychology only some brief re-
marks are possible here. We dealt with forms or groups . of very dif-
ferent degrees of solidity. There are cases in which all attempts to des-
troy, in actual analysis, a given form in favor of a certain other form
are in vain. But distribute the furniture of a room in an irregular
manner through this room: you will have rather solid and stable units,
the single objects, but no equally stable and firm groups will be formed
spontaneously with those objects as members. You observe that one group
formation is easily displaced by another, depending on slight changes of
conditions, probably in yourself. It is evident that, under such circum-
stances, the influence of changes in the subjective attitude towards the
field will be much higher than in the case of the solid units or stable
groups. Even forces of no peculiar intensity will now be strong enough
to produce new groups in a field which — with the exception of the ob-
jects in it — does not resist very much because its interior tendencies of
group formation are too weak.
This consideration will now be applied to the problem of learning. We
remember one of the usual forms of experimentation with animals. The
subject is confronted with two or more objects and learns to choose one
of them, depending upon its position in space, or its color, or some other
discriminating quality. This effect is produced by rewarding the animal
each time it chooses the right object and perhaps punishing it whenever it
chooses the wrong one. Learning of this kind is usually a slow process
without any indication of higher processes being involved. The curve of
learning which shows how the number of wrong choices decreases with
time has an irregular but gradually descending form. One might expect
an ape to solve simple tasks of this type in shorter time. But that is
not always the case. Often the period of learning in anthropoids is at
least as long as with lower animals. However, the form of learning is
sometimes quite different from what is found in the case of lower verte-
brates.
When Yerkes (11) made experiments of the general type described^ with
an orang-utan, this ape did not make any real progress at all for a long
time. But finally, when the experimenter had almost lost hope of mak-
ing the orang solve his task, the ape after one right choice suddenly
mastered the problem completely, i.e., never again made a mistake. He
had solved the problem in one lucky moment, his curve of learning show-
ing an altogether abrupt descent. Some of my experiences on the learn-
ing process in chimpanzees are very similar to this observation of Yerkes.
Sometimes the same surprising fact is found in children, and one can
hardly avoid the impression that this ape behaves like a man under
similar circumstances who, after a while, in a certain individual ex-
periment, would grasp the principle of the problem and say to himself,
"Oh, that's the point! Always the dark object!"; of course with the con-
sequence that he, too, would never make a mistake again.
^It does not matter for our present discussion that the experiments were dealing
with "multiple choice" instead of the simpler sensory discrimination.
156 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
We do not well describe experiments of this type by saying, as we
usually do, that an animal in such a situation learns to connect certain
stimuli with certain reactions and that this connection is "stamped in,"
This formulation of the process gives too much importance to the mem-
ory or association side of the problem, and it neglects another side of it
which may be even more important and more difficult.
Although so much has been said against "anthropomorphism" in animal
psychology, we have here a persisting case of this error, committed not by
dilettants but by very eminent men of science. The experimenter is in-
terested in a problem of sensory discrimination and builds an appropriate
apparatus which shall present "the stimuli" to the animal in question.
When he looks upon the situation which he has created himself, this
situation is completely organized for him, "the stimuli" being the out-
standing features of it, and all the rest forming an unimportant background.
Consequently he formulates the animal's task as one of connecting "these
stimuli" with certain reactions, reward and punishment enforcing this
connection. But he is not aware of the fact that now he has credited
the animal with the same organized situation which exists for himself,
the experimenter, in consequence of his scientific aim and problem. Cer-
tainly the experimenter sees the stimuli as dominating the situation when-
ever he looks upon it. But why should the same organization exist in the
sensory situation of the innocent animal? As we have remarked, ob-
jective situations may appear in very different organizations. Under
the influence of interests, of previous experiences, etc., an original organ-
ization tends to change into new ones. It is altogether improbable, how-
ever, that an animal when confronted with a new situation of discrimina-
tion experiments, should at the outset have the same organization of the
field which exists in the experimenter's thought and perception.
Perhaps in this respect the animal's perception of the field is much more
different from that of the experimenter than a young student's first per-
ception of brain tissue in the microscope is different from that of the
trained neurologist. This student cannot react immediately, and in a
definite way, to the differences in the structure of tissues which dominate
in the professor's microscopic field, because the student does not yet see
the field in this organization. Even so, the student at least knows that
in this situation his actual experiences of temperature, touch, muscular
sense, noises, smells, and the optical world outside of the microscopic field
shall be without any importance. Nothing of this eliminating knowledge
is given to the animal, who is put in an apparatus and there shall learn
"to connect the stimuli with the reactions," but who really is sub-
jected to a world of sensory data in the surroundings and in himself.
Whatever the first organization of these data may be, it cannot possibly
correspond to the very special organization which the experimenter sees.
Therefore the question arises as one of the greatest importance: What
role does the actual manner in which the situation appears to the animal
play in his reactions and in the learning process? And further, is learn-
ing going on independently of this factor and of possible changes in the
organization of the field? Or is reorganization, which would make "the
WOLFGANG KOHLER 157
stimuli" outstanding features in the field, perhaps an important part of the
problem? In this case, does the animal need so many trials as it really
receives for the building up of a connection of stimuli and reaction, or
does he need those trials for the right organization of the field, so that
eventually there is the right thing to undergo the right connection ? Finally,
does the stress of rev^^ard and punishment exert any influence in the di-
rection of such a reorganization? If not, how^ else is the reorganization
produced ?
As yet we cannot answer these questions, so far as the lower vertebrates
are concerned. But the observations of Yerkes and my own make it rather
probable that in anthropoid apes at least the same thing may occur under
favorable conditions that is so common in man : After some experience in
a new situation he has to deal with, a sudden change into an organization
appropriate to the task, with the accents on the right places. We may even
suspect that afterwards not very much time is needed for a connection
between the now outstanding stimuli and the reaction, if ever there was
a real separation of the two tasks. Animals often learn so surprisingly
fast under the natural conditions of their life, when an object they are
already attending to shows "good" or "bad" properties.
If there is anything in these remarks, we may be compelled to make
a revision of our theories of learning. The concept of a reorganization
occurring under the stress of the total situation would become altogether
essential for learning in animals and in man.
More than one psychologist would say that an animal who (like Yerkes'
orang) suddenly "grasps" the principle of a situation in learning ex-
periments thereby shows a genuine type of intelligent behavior. If this
is true, another form of experiment may well be more appropriate to the
facts in question.
An example frequently to be observed in the classroom will show what I
mean.
I try to explain to my students a somewhat difficult demonstration of
a mathematical theory, putting all my sentences together with the ut-
most care in the right sequence and with all possible clearness. I shall
probably not have much success in my first performance. Something re-
mains dull in the faces of my audience. So I repeat what I have
said, and perhaps in the course of the third repetition one face here, an-
other there, will suddenly undergo a marked change toward "brightness."
Soon afterwards I may call the owner of one of those changed faces to the
blackboard, and he will be able to give the demonstration himself — ^we
might say, to imitate what I performed before. Something has happened
between the sentences of the demonstration in this clever student's mind,
something important enough to become immediately visible in the change
of his outer aspect and to make a new performance possible.
If we try to apply this experience to experimentation vnth apes, for
instance, we cannot, of course, make use of speech, in giving the model,
and instead of mathematics, too, we have to choose another kind of prob-
lem. What is the effect on an ape if he sees another ape or a human being
158 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
perform a certain action which, if imitated by the ape, would be of the
greatest advantage for him?
Imitation of new performances is by no means an easy task for an
ape. Certain conditions must be fulfilled before imitation becomes pos-
sible. One of the chimpanzees whom I have observed in Teneriffe was
almost stupid, at least when compared with other apes. He had been
present a great many times when other chimpanzees had used the box
as a tool for reaching objects in high places. So, eventually, I expected this
animal to be able to do the same thing when left alone in such a situation,
i.e., with a banana somewhere on the ceiling, a box some yards away on
the ground. The ape went to the box; but instead of moving it in the
direction of the food, he either climbed up on the box and jumped from
there vertically in the air, though the food was elsewhere, or he tried
to jump from the ground and to reach the banana. The others showed
him the simple performance a number of times, but he could not imitate
them and copied only parts of their behavior which, without the right
connection in the whole act, did not help him at all. He climbed up on the
box, ran from there under the banana, and jumped again from the ground.
Decidedly the right connection of box and food in this situation was not
yet apparent to our chimpanzee. Sometimes he moved the box a little
from its place, but as often as not away from the food. Only after
many more demonstrations of the simple act did he finally learn to do it
in a manner which I cannot describe briefly. One sees there is a serious
task in learning by imitation even for a less intelligent ape. An intelligent
chimpanzee, observing another in this little performance, will, for instance,
soon become aware that moving the box means, from the first moment,
moving it to a place underneath the food, the movement will be grasped
as one with this essential orientation, whereas a stupid animal sees first
the movement of the box, not relating it instantly to the place of the
food. He will observe single phases of the whole performance, but
he will not perceive them as parts related to the essential structure
of the situation, in which alone they are parts of the solution. Of course,
this correct organization is not simply given in the sequence of retinal
images which the action of the imitatee produces. It is with imitation
as with teaching. When teaching children we can give only some favorable
conditions or "marks" for the new things which the child has "to learn,"
and the child has always to furnish something from his side which we
may call "understanding" and which sometimes seems to arise suddenly,
corresponding to the marks given by us. Nobody can simply pour it into
the child.
If apes in some cases are able to "see" the necessary connection between
the parts of a performance which they observe and the essentials of the
situation, the question naturally arises whether or not the same apes some-
times invent similar performances as solutions in a new situation. An
ape who sees a box obliquely underneath some fruits hanging down from
the ceiling will soon try to reach these fruits from the top of the box.
Since the box is not quite correctly situated and, therefore, the ape per-
WOLFGANG KOHLER 159
haps cannot reach the food immediately, does he "understand the situation"
and move the box a little until it is more or less exactly below the food?
I have described elsewhere how chimpanzees really solve simple problems
of this type without the help of teaching or the model performance of
another. Since this description is translated into the English language,
there is no need of repeating it (5).
But let me mention one side of the ape's behavior because of its im-
portance in many of these experiments. An ape who has often used a
stick as an instrument when he found his food on the ground beyond
the bars of his cage finds it there again beyond the reach of his arms. But
no stick is in his room, only a little tree is there, a stem dividing into
two or three branches. For a long time the ape does not find a solution.
He knows about sticks and their use, and now there is a tree. But he
does not see parts of the tree as possible sticks. Later on, he suddenly
finds the solution, goes to the tree, breaks off one of the branches, and
uses it as a stick. But it appears to me important that for quite a while
the tree does not seem to have any connection with the problem. Human
beings, accustomed to analyzing and reorganizing the structure of their
surroundings with relation to a problem, would see the branches as
possible sticks from the first moment. In order to understand the ape's
behavior from the human standpoint, we must take a somewhat more
difficult structure than the simple tree with its branches. Let us suppose
that for some reason or other you want a wooden frame of the following
form: Iv In your room there is not such a thing. Some other wooden
frames, namely,
do not look in the first moment as if they would be of any use in your
situation, even if you apply the saw, which may be the only instrument
available. To be sure, after I made the preceding remarks about the ape,
you begin to analyze these forms because you must suspect now that there
I have "hidden" the frame you want. And so you find it very soon in the
IN . But wouldn't you give up, perhaps, in the case that such a sus-
picion were not aroused beforehand, those forms looking like casual parts
of your surroundings? For the mental level of the chimpanzee, the tree
seems to be, with regard to the stick (the branch), what the group of
forms and especially the "R is for us with regard to that frame : The
part which we might use is not a visual reality as a part in the whole
which is given originally. It may become such a reality by a transforma-
tion. Reorganization of the surroundings under the stress of a given
160 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
situation would then again be an essential side of the task and at the same
time its main difficulty.
REFERENCES
1. KoFFA, K. Perception: an introduction to the Gestalt-Tkeorie. Psychol.
Bull, 1922, 19, 531-585.
2. KoHLER, W. Die physischen Gestalten in Ruhe und im stationaren Zustand.
Erfurt: W. Benary, 1912.
3. . Gestaltprobleme und Anfange einer Gestalttheorie. Jahrb. d. ges.
Physiol, 1922.
4. . Komplextheorie und Gestalttheorie. Psychol. Forsch., 1925, 6,
358-416.
5. . The mentality of apes. (Trans, by E. Winter.) London: Kegan,
Paul, 1924. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1925. Pp. viii+342.
6. . Gestalt psychology. New York: Liveright, 1929. Pp. x+402.
7. Rubin, E. Visuellwahrgenommene Figuren. Copenhagen, Christiana, Berlin,
London: Gyldendal, 1921. Pp. xii-i-244.
8. Wertheimer, M. Experimentelle Studien iiber das Sehen von Bewegung.
Zsch. f. Psychol, 1912, 61, 161-265.
9. . Untersuchungen zur Lehre von der Gestalt. Psychol. Forsch.,
1923, 4, 301-350.
10. . Drei Abhandlungen zur Gestalttheorie. Erfurt: W. Benary, 1925.
Pp. 184.
11. Yerkes, R. M. The mental life of monkeys and apes. A study of ideational
behavior. Behav. Monog., 1916, 3. Pp. iv+145.
CHAPTER 9
SOME PROBLEMS OF SPACE PERCEPTION
K. KOFFKA
Smith College
The following pages intend to give an application of a method of thought
and research to a group of problems which once held the interest of a num-
ber of the leading psychologists and sense physiologists, but which of late
have receded somewhat into the background of scientific attention. Ex-
perimental investigations of space perception in general and of the percep-
tion of depth in particular have been carried out by some of the ablest men
in our field with great ingenuity and technical skill; they have served as
touchstones for general theories, expressing fundamental convictions about
the nature of our perceptive processes. And a stupendous amount of
facts very little known to the younger generation of psychologists has thus
been brought to light. The reason for this change of attitude seems fairly
clear. Although most of the space investigations were carried out in order
to decide theoretical issues, it soon became apparent that no theory so far
advanced had been able to account for all of them. The number of theo-
ries grew steadily, but the scientific situation became more and more in-
volved instead of being clarified. And so experimentalists turned to fields
that promised a quicker and richer harvest. Much as this relative neglect
of our subject is to be deplored, it is the manifestation of a fundamental
and scientific tendency; mere collection of facts will not establish a sci-
ence. As soon as the facts lose their theoretical setting they lose their
scientific interest.
The development which the psychology of perception has undergone in
Gestalt psychology makes it possible and compulsory to return to these old
problems. How do they present themselves from the point of view which
has been so fruitful in other fields of perception? This is the question to
which this article wants to give an answer in part. The reader must not
turn to the following pages as though they pretended to reveal ultimate
truths. They are intended as tentative approaches, hypotheses which de-
mand verification, attempts at proving these hypotheses by experimental
facts. To understand Gestalt psychology one must understand its pro-
cedure, how its hypotheses are made, how they are translated into
experiments which decide for or against them. If the reader will compare
the views presented here with the traditional teachings of the subject, he
will be forced to admit the difference between them whether he is willing
to accept the new hypotheses or not. In either case, I hope, he will feel
that our subject is in need of extensive and intensive experimental work
and that it is worth while for the psychologist to devote his energies to
such investigations.
[161]
162 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
"It is, I think, agreed by all that Distance, of itself and immediately,
cannot be seen. For, distance being a line directed endwise to the eye,
it projects only one point in the fund of the eye, which point remains
invariably the same, whether the distance be longer or shorter."
This well-known quotation from Berkeley's Theory of Vision (5, p.
127) will serve to introduce my topic. The view tersely expressed in his
few lines has influenced physiological and psychological optics up to our
time. When I studied psychology, not a few of the leading psychologists,
like Ebbinghaus and Cornelius, although accepting an innate sensory basis
of bidimensional space, were in full harmony with Berkeley in that they
rejected vision of depth in the proper meaning of the term. Today this
view no longer seems to find any explicit expression, but less, I believe, be-
cause psychologists have been fully convinced of its falsity than because
of the fact that the whole problem has lost in general interest. And even
today we find the distinction between original, direct, physiological, and
acquired, indirect, psychological factors of the perception of depth very
much in the same sense in which it occurs in Berkeley's classical treatise.
Thus in the revised edition which has just appeared of one of the most
popular American textbooks, the author enumerates the various "signs of
distance" which "are utilized together in the visual perception of three-
dimensional space" and deems it "quite possible that some sign of distance,
probably the binocular sign, does not have to be learned" (40, p. 400).
To Gestalt theory the problem of space perception in all its aspects is
of fundamental importance. The reader who is familiar with Kohler's
Gestalt Psychology (24) knows the role which is played in his system by
the total field and its spatial characteristics. Our organized behavior takes
place within an organized spatial field. Consequently to understand the
organization of this field is a main task of the Gestalt psychologist.
Parenthetically, in our opinion it should be a chief task for every psy-
chologist. My choice of the word "task" is intentional. For I do not
concur in the belief, which has been expressed quite recently, that the prob-
lem of visual perception of depth or, for that matter, any of the prob-
lems of spatial organization, has been carried to a satisfactory solution.
Some aspects of this large problem are discussed in Kohler's contribution
to the preceding volume in this series (23). I shall take up a few others
which are centered around the problem of tridimensionality.
Let us then return to Berkeley. Distance cannot be seen because two
points on the same line are projected on the same retinal point. This ar-
gument rests on two implicit assumptions: {a) The property of the re-
ceptor organ, in this case its bidimensionality, determines the properties
of the result of stimulation of this organ. Because the retina is a sur-
face, therefore visual perception should be a surface also, {b) We can
study the properties of our visual field by studying individual points in it.
Both assumptions have guided psychological theory for a long time, the
second having exerted even greater influence than the first. But both
K. KOFFKA
163
assumptions are far from self-evident. The first takes no account of the
fact that the retina is only a "boundary surface" of the brain, which is a
tridimensional structure. Consequently, a priori it seems quite possible
that the processes which are aroused by stimulation of the retina may re-
sult in processes which do afFect the brain in all three dimensions. The
second assumption has lost ground so rapidly during the last decade that
it is not necessary to point out its weakness. Furthermore, Kohler's con-
tribution just mentioned shows irrefutably how inapplicable it is to the
theory of the visual field. Thus Berkeley's argument loses its stringency.
And we should try to see whether we cannot build a theory that is more
consistent with appearances, for the naive person surely is convinced that he
sees depth no less than length and breadth. Such a theory would have to
explain why we see depth and which are the factors that produce tridi-
mensional rather than bidimensional organizations of our visual experi-
ences; it will rest on the psycho-physical axioms as formulated by Kohler
(24, pp. 61-67). The one especially applicable to our problems reads:
"All experienced order in space is a true representation of a corresponding
order in the underlying dynamical context of physiological processes." Con-
sequently, when in the future we speak about the spatial field and its or-
ganization, we shall mean at the same time the visual experiences and the
underlying somatic processes.
I shall begin by discussing an example that figures in most textbooks
without receiving a very elaborate treatment, namely, the Necker cube
(see Figure 1). This drawing appears to everyone as a cube, i.e., as a
FIGURE 1
tridimensional shape notwithstanding the fact that in reality it possesses
only two dimensions. Surely this would be considered a paradoxical fact
in need of thorough elucidation, were it not that most psychologists have
this explanation ready: because of experience we perceive this drawing not
as what it really is but as something which we have seen frequently be-
fore and which as a stimulus had something in common with the present
stimulus (40, p. 414). Now such an explanation is still ambiguous inas-
much as it allows two different interpretations.
1) The cube as a tridimensional shape is acknowledged as a fact of
164
PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
sensory experience, and therefore also of physiological process. The theory
maintains merely that this particular stimulus, our drawing, could not give
rise to this perception unless the observer had previously seen real cubes,
with the implicit assumption that a real cube as a stimulus would be able
to produce a cube experience.
2) We do not really see a cube in Figure 1 but only lines in a cer-
tain distribution. But these lines have, through previous experience, ac-
quired the "meaning" cube. Although, according to my judgment, the
second interpretation is the more widely accepted, I shall neglect it in my
further argument since Kohler has devoted a long section of his book to the
discussion of the "meaning theory."
The first interpretation has the great advantage over the second that it
is specific and concrete. It is a statement which it will be very difficult to
disprove, but, I am afraid, still more difficult to prove. Indeed the influ-
ence of experience, whether in the form of the first or the second inter-
pretation, although almost universally accepted, has never been put to the
test except in the experiments by Gottschaldt (11, 12), which gave ex-
tremely negative results.
Consequently we must consider the traditional explanation of the Necker
cube figure as but one of many possible hypotheses, and we can feel free
to advance another, that will be more amenable to experimental proof.
This more radical hypothesis explains the tridimensional shape of our
figure as the result of spontaneous organization in the visual field. Our
arguments in support of this hypothesis will be indirect. We shall investi-
gate conditions under which bidimensional and tridimensional organizations
are more natural, i.e., when either of them occurs more easily and spontane-
ously.
/ /
FIGURE 2
7
FIGURE 3
Figure 2 will appear at first sight as two broken lines in the plane of
the page, i.e., as two bidimensional shapes. In Figure 3 we have added
only one line, but now the experienced shape is tridimensional: the two
oblique lines will lead out of the plane of the page, either backwards or
forwards. Finally, Figure 4 which has been produced from Figure 1 by
the addition of two lines will again appear as bidimensional.
None of these appearances is absolutely compulsory, but doubtless they
K. KOFFKA
165
are the spontaneous ones. Furthermore, it is fairly easy to see Figure 2
in three dimensions, but more difficult to see Figure 4 so. About the same
difficulty exists in seeing Figure 1 as a plane shape, and it seems most diffi-
cult of all for me to see Figure 3 as bidimensional. What can be the cause
of these facts?
Let us begin with Figure 4. It consists of three main parts: the pattern
of Figure 5 as the center and two isosceles triangles on either side.^ These
FIGURE 4
FIGURE 5
three parts are easily joined together in a plane, as a matter of fact they
yield a fairly simple and aesthetically not unpleasant form. In Figure 1,
as long as we see it as a cube, the lines are very differently grouped. We
see the two square planes, the front and the back ones. Alone (Figure 6)
they yield a simple plane figure. But there is a remainder which by itself
also produces a plane shape (Figure 7). I do not know whether the
FIGURE 6
FIGURE 7
^^Almost twenty years ago Benussi (3) pointed out that in a pattern like
Figure 1, particularly when it stands on one of its corners, a similar shape may-
be seen, with the result that this figure will appear bidimensional; his whole
method of treatment is, up to a point, similar to the one carried out in this
166 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
reader will find it possible to see simultaneously the two plane patterns of
Figures 6 and 7 when he looks at Figure 1. I certainly have not succeeded j
in doing so in spite of many efforts, and, if some readers are more success-
ful, they will surely find this mode of perceiving Figure 1 very difficult,
because there is nothing in the pattern that tends to break it up into these '
two parts; these parts are not, to use Wertheimer's terms, good parts of :
the total patterns. But, if they are to be united into a total pattern, this»
can be done only if the two squares of Figure 6 appear in different planes I
and the four lines of Figure 7 connect these planes with each other. This
organization produces a particularly strong cohesion among all its parts
since now perfect symmetry is achieved : we see six square planes and eight
edges between them, each one of them equivalent to every other.
Thus far we have remained on the descriptive level. But this descrip-
tion suggests of itself an explanation: since in both cases. Figures 4 and 1,
the actually favored pattern is characterized by symmetry, although the one
is a hi- the other a tridimensional form, are we not tempted to infer that
the kind of symmetry achieved is the reason for the plane and solid experi-
ence? That would mean: when simple symmetry is achievable in two i
dimensions, we shall see a plane figure ; if it requires three dimensions, then I
we shall see a solid. But always the organization of the field resulting I
from retinal stimulation will show the greatest possible symmetry. In '
other words, we have explained the appearances of the Necker cube not by
experience but on the ground of principles of organization.
I need not repeat my argument for Figures 2 and 3. The reader will
be able to supply it himself, and he will also be able to draw a number of
other figures which exemplify the same facts.
Perhaps the reader will admit that the explanation proposed in the pre-
ceding paragraph is possible. But far from being inclined to consider it
also as the most probable, he will want to know why it is any better than
his old empiristic explanation. This I shall start out to demonstrate by dis-
cussing some more details of our figures from the point of view of the ex-
perience and the organization hypotheses. If the reader admits that Fig-
ure 1 appears spontaneously as three-dimensional and Figure 4 as two-
dimensional, he would have to explain this by pointing out*that Figure 1
as a stimulus has more in common with a stimulus which in the past has
aroused the experience of a cube than the second. Can such a statement
be validated?^ First, we might raise the point that the readers are not
text. But whereas we attempt to show that such forms have a direct organizing
eflFect upon the total form, Benussi considers them as starting-points of repro-
ductions. He is thus representative of the first empiristic hypothesis discussed
above. And the same is true of Witasek (39, p. 380), who has enforced the
bidimensional appearance of Figure 1 by coloring different parts of it differently.
He also believed that this modification affected the reproductive properties of
the drawing. Since these two men were more interested in perception of form
and knew more about it than any other contemporary psychologists, this historical
retrospect shows how much more powerful a tool for theoretical treatment the
Gestalt concept has become since then.
''In very careful and extensive experiments Gottschaldt has proved the falsity
of this general statement (11).
K. KOFFKA
167
likely to have been exposed frequently to a real cube that projected an image
like that of our Figure 1 on their retinas. For only a wire or glass cube
would fulfil this condition, and as far as I am aware they do not abound
in our environment. But I shall lay no stress on this point. Let us then
compare our two drawings, Figures 1 and 4. All the lines of 1 are present
in 4; two more lines are present in 4 than in 1. Therefore the addition of
these two lines must make our stimulus less similar to a past stimulus that
has aroused the cube experience. But why have these two lines this effect?
If we succeed in seeing Figure 4 as a cube, we find that these two added
lines are perfectly integrated. Then they are diagonals across the front
and back. Must we assume that we have never seen such a cube? Per-
haps, but then we surely have never seen one with such strange lines added
to it as that of Figure 8, and yet we see this figure spontaneously as a
cube. Consider that Figure 8 is quantitatively more different from Fig-
ure 1 than Figure 4, four lines having been added instead of only two.
Lastly, look at Figure 9 which has a slight tendency to become confused,
but which will be much more readily seen as a cube with diagonals across
its back and front planes than Figure 4. From the point of view of the
experience explanation, then. Figure 9 and Figure 4 should be equal, and
both superior to Figure 8 in arousing the cube experience. In reality they
are not equal, and both are inferior to Figure 8 in this respect.
FIGURE 8
FIGURE 9
What should we expect from the organization hypothesis? The extra
lines in Figure 8, being totally unconnected geometrically and formally
with the general pattern, will not interfere with its organization. In
Figure 4 each of the tWo added lines passes through a significant point of
the cube pattern. Thereby at each of these points new line combinations
become possible and gain dominance because these two points, heretofore
equivalent to the six other corners are now differentiated from them. I
need not elaborate the structural factors in further detail, since I have
already demonstrated that in Figure 4 the two new lines will tend to change
the whole organization, because they serve as boundary lines to a num-
ber of single plane figures which fit into each other within the plane. In
168
PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
Figure 9 the "same lines" by avoiding these corners also avoid this effect.
It is true they complicate the conditions somewhat since they are capable
of functioning as boundary lines of other plane figures, but these new fig-
ures do not fit together so well and therefore our drawing, even when it
is not seen as a cube, still appears in three dimensions. Thus we find that
the organization theory explains our facts; this is no post factum explana-
tion since, starting from the organization hypothesis, I drew my figures so
as to obtain the required effect.
It is not very difficult to see Figure 1 as a plane pattern, whereas Fig-
ure 10 offers great resistance to such organization.^ From the experience
FIGURE 10
hypothesis there should be no difference between them, but from the organ-
ization hypothesis the difference is easily deduced. As a plane geometrical
pattern Figure 1 is much the more symmetrical of the two, and this sym-
metry of the plane aspect is enhanced when the figure is turned so that the
pattern represented in Figure 5 stands vertical, while the interrupted
diagonal of the hexagon lies horizontal.^ As a matter of fact, in this
position the plane effect is more easily obtained. On the other hand, both
figures, as cubes, are equally symmetrical and therefore the cube organi-
zation is more stable in 10 than in 1. The reader will have no difficulty
in applying similar arguments to Figures 2 and 3.^
Thus it seems that the organization hypothesis is better adapted to the
facts than the experience hypothesis. This has the consequence that we
have to abandon our conception that for monocular vision depth is not a
primary fact. For in all our examples the specific contribution of binocu-
lar vision, the binocular parallax, has been excluded. All our experiments
succeed as well or better^ when we use one ej'^e only. Monocular vision
will result in three-dimensional forms whenever the stimulus constella-
tion is such that the processes aroused by it can reach the most stable or-
*This has already been mentioned by Witasek (39, p. 380).
*This has been experimentally proved by Benussi (3).
^For an explanation of the fact that Figure 2 can be seen as tridimensional
without difficulty, I refer the reader to Wertheimer (38) and my paper (20).
*As Ebbinghaus pointed out long ago (6, p. 476).
K. KOFFKA 169
ganization if they distribute themselves not in a plane of the somatic field
but in all its three dimensions. Organization means dynamical interaction,
not mere geometrical correlation (24, pp. 103 &.). And we experience
the forces that are at work whenever we succeed in seeing a less stable
organization. Then we have to exert our "will" in order to hold the form
against the spontaneous distribution of the forces.
Since the organization hypothesis is applicable to every kind of spatial
organization, the foundations on which we based it may seem too slender.
After all, such simple drawings form a negligible part of the number of
objects seen. Therefore I shall adduce some supplementary evidence.
1 ) A very simple way to enforce tridimensional organization of the
field by stimulation in a frontal-parallel plane is the ^ experiment. In
the simple manner first described by Wertheimer one exposes successively
two parallel lines in such a way that the experience of optimal movement
is achieved ; the observer sees one line moving, say from left to right. If
one now introduces between the others a third parallel line which remains
permanently visible, then the optimal movement will persist, but the origi-
nal line will now, in its motion across the field, pass behind the permanent
line. The movement, instead of being interrupted, is seen to pass through
a tunnel (37, p. 224). In this case the permanent line excludes the <^
process from its own area without being capable of breaking it up. Thus
the process is forced into the third dimension.'^
2) A change from bi- into a tridimensional movement is described by
Benussi under even simpler conditions. He exposed two dots 10' cm. apart
in periodic succession. After a certain time the observer, who originally
saw the dot running backwards and forwards, saw it moving on a circu-
lar track within a plane which forms an angle of approximately 90 de-
grees with the frontal parallel (4, pp. 11 If.). The periodicity of the
process tends again to make it more symmetrical, but the stimulus condi-
tions prevent a circular movement in the vertical plane, there being no vec-
tors upwards or downwards. Thus this circular movement develops in
the depth dimension.
3) But two-dimensional movement is not always the first to occur in
(jj experiments. As Higginson (15) and Steinig (33) emphasize, certain
plane figures will move in tridimensional tracks. Thus the stimulus pat-
tern reproduced in Figure 11,^ in which a and b are alternately exposed.
''Analogous facts in stationary spatial arrangements are practically universal.
Thus Fuchs (7, pp. 150 f.), who performed many experiments on such problems
(see below), points out that if we look at a vertical black rod standing in front
of a white background and at some distance from it, it does not interrupt in our
perception the uniform field of the ground; rather will the part of the back-
ground which is concealed by the rod persist in some way or other; and, although
it is very difficult to find words for the description of this way, it can be demon-
strated by contrasting it with another possibility of perceiving the same situation
(facilitated by monocular vision) ; then the rod appears within the plane of the
background, which now has three parts, two white ones and a black one between
them. In this case the white surface is actually interrupted by the black stripe
and no longer lies behind it.
^aken from Steinig.
170
PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
produces, when the time conditions are such that optimal movement is
seen, a rotation around a horizontal axis of symmetry, i.e., through space.
In this case a plane down-upward movement would necessitate strong dis-
tortions of form; a rotation within the plane of the drawing would mean
A
V
b
FIGURE 11
a longer track for the whole figure than the actually perceived movement.
Thus the principle of the shortest track, again a principle of organiza-
tion, explains the perceived depth.
4) We shall take a last group of facts from the perception of station-
ary objects. It is impossible to see two different forms in the same place,
but it is not impossible to see such forms in the same direction. In such
cases, therefore, the forms will organize themselves so that one appears
behind the other. This is true of every figure-ground arrangement as
Rubin has pointed out (31, p. 59).^ In most of Rubin's well-known fig-
ures the depth between figure and ground is not very great, although in
some of his patterns it may reach considerable amounts (up to 1 m.). But
2
FIGURE 12
0=Observer
iS= Screen
f^Episcotister (blue sector-disc)
5^Yellow disc on black ground
^Our first (h example and the rod in front of the background illustrate the same
point.
K. KOFFKA 171
under other conditions such marked depth effects are easily obtainable.
I am thinking of the cases of transparency which have been most systemati-
cally investigated by Fuchs (7, 8) after Katz (19) had brought them to
the attention of psychologists. Katz's original experiments, described in a
simplified form, will bring out my point. Arrange a vertical gray card-
board screen S, (see Figure 12) with a small hole H about 1 cm. in diam-
eter and a black background with a yellow disc B on it, say 1.5 m. behind
the screen. Put between the two, about 50 cm. from the screen, a color-
wheel with a blue sector of the same diameter as the yellow disc; the rest
being open in such a way that the observer's eye at O sees the little hole
in the screen filled with yellow or blue according to the position of the
sector-disc on the color-wheel. If you then rotate the color-wheel, the
little hole will be filled with a yellow-blue mixture, and it is possible to
vary the size of the blue sector until the hole appears neutral gray. Now
remove your screen, and at once you will see the dark background
with a yellow disc through a transparent blue circular disc, though the
retinal stimulation has remained unaltered within the area that corre-
sponded to the hole in the screen. And although the yellow of the station-
ary disc behind the transparent disc is not so saturated as when seen di-
rectly, and the blue of the sector-disc is less saturated than the blue of the
paper from which it is made, nevertheless both the blue and the yellow
are impressive colors.^^ Perhaps no experiment proves more strikingly
the inadequacy of the Berkeleyan axioms.^^
Let us, in accordance with our previous analysis of Berkeley, con-
sider the retinal stimulation point for point. We have to distinguish three
different areas. Outside the sector-disc the retina is stimulated by very weak
light, within but outside the yellow disc by blue light and, lastly, within
the area of the stationary disc by a substitute for white (or gray)
light (yellow-blue mixture). Of course, for any separate retinal point a
stimulus for transparency, i.e., for duality of color, can exist as little as
one for depth. But in our case there are contours on the retina, i.e., the
dividing lines between different parts of the field. An outer contour sep-
arates the black background as seen outside and inside the area of the ro-
tating sector, and an inner one segregates the stationary disc from its
ground. Each of these contours produces and bounds a figure, one corres-
ponding to the rotating sector, the other to the stationary disc. Conse-
quently we have two different organizations in the same direction, since
each contour affects one area only and not the other.^^ This results in the
splitting-up of the critical field both as regards color and depth. The two
aspects are conjoined in every experiment on transparency. And, since
the laws which have been discovered for the appearance of transparency are
^"For quantitative values see Katz (19, pp. 341 f.). The effect depends upon a
number of conditions which I cannot discuss here. Cf. (7, 8).
^Since the phenomenon of transparency appears under these conditions in
monocular vision also, we can in our argument neglect the factor of retinal dis-
parity.
^This one-sided effect of contours was first described by Rubin (31).
172 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
laws of organization (7, and 36, pp. 277f.), it is proved that in these
cases depth is also a matter of organization. This explanation of the trans-
parency effect by a splitting-up of the color processes is, needless to say,
a hypothesis which requires experimental evidence and therefore indicates
new experimental problems. We are beginning such investigations in my
laboratory.
II
Few psychologists seem to have seen a problem in the fact that a frontal
parallel plane (or a surface lying in the horopter) appears as a plane. But,
if we accept the proposition that our visual space in its totality is the pro-
duct of organization, we can no longer be satisfied with an acceptance of
the fact from a purely geometrical point of view, the remnant of the first
assumption implicit in Berkeley's argument (see above). Rather must we
consider the fact that we are able to see plane surfaces as an indication of
a particular kind of organization. And we possess some evidence that such
an organization, far from being the most primitive, is a high-grade achieve-
ment. On the other hand, we have, in the first section of this article, become
familiar with cases where retinal stimulation without retinal disparity
tends to tridimensional organization in the somatic field. But if this pos-
sibility exists, why do bidimensional organizations occur at all? Why, in
other words, are certain processes in the visual cortex confined to a surface
instead of spreading out in all directions ? This question gives us the proper
perspective, for it makes it manifest that bidimensional organization is a
very special case, which probably requires very special conditions.
From this point of view I shall now discuss the description of two cases
of agnosia caused by brain lesions, reported by Gelb (9).-'^^ The fundamen-
tal cause of the symptoms of agnosia or mental blindness is a defect of or-
ganization (10, p. 129, and 24, p. 169). The greater the disturbance, the
less articulate are the organizations which the injured system can produce.
In the two cases reported by Gelb this defect had a form which throws light
from a new angle on this process of organization. Organization has a
double aspect. On the one hand, areas or volumes of space must be held
together; on the other hand, these units must be segregated from the rest
of the field. This fact has, for a long time, been accepted as a matter of
course because the traditional thinking in matters of space perception has
been geometrical. The fact that we see a blue circle on a gray background
seemed in need of no further explanation, since the retinal image of the
blue circle was different from the retinal image of the background. "Form
is given by arrangement on the retina of colored patches, just as in an oil
painting" (40, p. 357). But a simple experiment which has been per-
formed within the last five years proves that pure geometry is inadequate to
account even for such simple facts. We need only choose a shade of gray
for our background that is equal in brightness to our blue circle, and the
^^Although I owe the ideas presented in the following pages to Gelb's exemplary
investigation, he should not be held responsible for the hypothesis here advanced.
K. KOFFKA 173
blue circle will lose its definition, will become blurred and shapeless, and
may even, provided we are not too near to it, disappear completely for
short moments (28). At the same time a gray circle, but little brighter
or darker than the background, will be clearly visible, although the two
grays look much more similar to each other than the gray and the blue.
From this we must conclude that the organization of our field into
a circle on a background is a dynamic process, aroused by retinal stimu-
lation, but not a mere geometrical projection of such stimulation. A
boundary line must be formed which shapes the circular area and segre-
gates it from the background. And we learn from Liebmann's experiment
that such boundary lines are formed very readily by brightness differences
and only very poorly by mere color differences. When the color approaches
the brightness of the gray background, the cohesive force of the boundary
line decreases, the organization becomes weaker and weaker.
Therefore we might expect that defects in the organization processes
produced by brain injuries have similar results. Boundary lines will lose
some of their integrating and segregating force, and the same should be
true of boundary surfaces, if we remember that our space is not bi- but
tridimensional.
This expectation is fulfilled when we read about the symptoms of the
two patients which have been so excellently investigated by Gelb. For
these patients would not see our blue circle on a gray ground, ^"^ that
is, a bidimensional structure with a sharp rim. Instead they would see it
projecting from the ground about 10 cm., if they stand less than a meter's
distance from it. This does not mean, however, that the blue circle ap-
pears in a plane that much nearer, but that the blue begins here. For the
circle is for our patients not a surface but a space-filling color, into which
they have to dip their fingers when they want to touch it. As a matter
of fact, the blue stretches also farther back than the light background, as
has been proved in very ingenious experiments. Furthermore, the circle
has for these patients a larger diameter than it has for us. If they are
asked to indicate its rim with a sharp pencil, they will indicate a point a
few millimeters outside of its area. Had we chosen a light circle on a dark
ground, the ground would have stood out and the circle would have ap-
peared embedded between the walls of a dark funnel. For the thickness
and spread (in length and breadth) of the colors was a function of their
brightness! The darker the color, the greater its depth. Consequently
black was the thickest, and white the thinnest color. Quantitatively ex-
pressed, when the black surfaces seemed to project about 15 cm., the
white ones stood out only 2-3 cm. It is significant that the images of these
patients were essentially similar to their percepts in this respect. All ob-
jects which they could visually imagine looked "thick" and "spongy."
Thus the observed phenomena seem to fit our predictions of phenomena
of decreased organization so well that we should have little doubt in ac-
"I disregard the fact that one of the patients was totally, the other partially-
color-blind, both color anomalies forming part of the general syndrome.
174 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
cepting our explanation as the correct one. Several further details strength-
en my conviction. During the course of time both patients recovered more
or less completely, and the process of restitution was carefully observed.
And it was discovered that the change towards normality proceeded from
the center towards the periphery of the field of vision. During a certain
period of this recovery these patients, when fixating the center of a colored
cardboard, saw not a plane but a concave surface, the center being flat
while towards all sides it became progressively thicker. Now we know
that the center of our field of vision is distinguished from the rest by the
degree of its organizing power. What we want to see clearly we fixate,
i.e., we transfer it into the center of our field of vision. The correlation,
then, between degree of recovery and central position serves as a further
proof that the defect was a defect of organization.
We have not yet explained why the different brightnesses possessed dif-
ferent thicknesses. A discussion of this fact will adduce new evidence in
favor of our hypothesis.
We shall again start by citing some facts from normal vision.
1 ) When we look at a scale of different shades of gray from white to
black, we find a difference that is more than qualitative. A dark gray is
not only a different shade from a pure white but it is also less brilliant,
less "insistent." Titchener, who uses this word as a translation of a Ger-
man word {Eindringlichkeit) describes the same property also by the words
"self-assertive" and "aggressive" (34, p. 55), and all three terms seem
equally good to describe the difference I have in mind. Hering has pro-
posed a physiological explanation for this insistence. Whereas, in his
theory, the brightness of a gray depends upon the relation of two antagonis-
tic processes, independently of the total reaction, this total amount of meta-
bolism is the cause of insistence (14, pp. 108 ff.). I mention Bering's
hypothesis not because my argument relies on his color theory, but because
I believe he was right in looking for some property of the somatic color
process that correlates with "insistence." Without any special hypothesis I
should suppose that some energy or intensity aspect of the process will be
the hypothetical correlate.
2) The same hypothesis is supported by the following fact: when we
try to color a part of a larger gray surface, we need more color the brighter
the area. Ackermann (1), repeating older experiments, added color to a
neutral ring surrounded on both sides by neutral discs of the same bright-
ness and varied consecutively his shades from black to white. He found
the difference between the color threshold for black on black and white on
white enormous, the latter, depending upon the color used, being between
five to twenty times greater than the former. This fact is most easily ex-
plained^^ if we ascribe a greater intensity to the white than to the black
process. It might be objected to this argument that under special condi-
tions a black may appear more insistent than white, as, for instance, the
letters on this page. But in accordance with this, Ackermann has found
^As G. E. Miiller did long ago (29, pp. 32 f.).
K. KOFFKA 175
that a black ring surrounded by white has a higher color threshold (for
blue, yellow, and green) than a white ring in the same surroundings.
For yellow, where this difference was most marked, the values were 15
degrees for the black ring and 5 for the white. And, of course, under these
conditions this black ring is more insistent than the white. However, as
experiments just started in my laboratory indicate, this connection be-
tween insistence and threshold is not so simple as it may appear, since un-
der other conditions an increase in the insistence does not seem to be ac-
companied by a rise of the threshold. The total articulation of the field
must be a decisive factor. When we now return to Gelb's investigation, we
find that he reaches the same conclusion with regard to the colors seen by
his patients. He also attributes prime importance to the mutual relations
(Zueinander) of the colors in order to explain observations which, though
slightly different in aim, give us some indication as to the relative color
depths. Investigating the transparency of these colors, he made, among
others, the following experiment. "When the patient wrote, a part of the
nib was 'within this bright' (i.e., of the white paper) although the pen
was darker than the paper. The patient said that 'he had to dip into the
bright' with his pen in order to reach the writing paper" (9, p. 226).
Thus it seems that under these conditions, where the black was the more
insistent, it possessed a smaller thickness than the white.
3) Finally, I shall take a few facts from Tudor-Hart's investigations
of transparency (36), which point in the same direction. She found that,
if a disc with an open sector (episcotister) rotates in front of a background,
then the transparency of the episcotister will depend among other factors,
upon its own brightness as well as that of the background. The darker
the episcotister and the brighter the background, the greater the degree
of transparency.
Having established this connection between brightness and intensity or
energy of the somatic process, we can now return to the defect in organi-
zation characteristic of Gelb's two patients. I think we can now under-
stand why ordinarily the depth of a color varied with its darkness. Al-
ready we have seen that organization in a plane surface with sharp bound-
ary lines is a special case — a case, we might add, which requires strong
forces for its realization. Indeed, the formation of quasi-membranes re-
quires very great forces, and such forces presuppose a high degree of sta-
bility in the system, otherwise the frame will yield. We can interpret the
defects of our patients by assuming that sufficiently strong forces to pro-
duce quasi-membranes could not arise, owing to the reduced stability of
their system. However, the fact that these patients were able to per-
ceive simple forms, albeit in altered conditions, proves that this incapa-
bility had a very definite limit. Segregation was still possible, the "frame"
did not yield completely to every pull or push. But then the strength of
the forces will also depend upon the intensity of the processes aroused by
stimulation. The greater this intensity, the greater the strength. And
since we have correlated the surface experience with a high force, we under-
stand that the bright colors, possessing a relatively high intensity, will be
176 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
more "surfacy," less deep, than the dark colors with their low intensity.
This hypothesis, however, has still a weak point. Gelb himself has
pointed it out in arguing against an explanation, which, though essentially
different from the one here proposed, also connects the depth of the colors
with their insistence (9, pp. 220 ff.). Gelb's patients, though they could
not see surface colors, still showed the phenomena of color constancy in
about the same degree as normal people. In other words, a black surface
in the light and a white in the shadow, so arranged that they reflected the
same amount of light per unit area, looked as different to them as to us
(9, p. 241). That is, white surfaces looked much brighter than black
ones, but also, and this is characteristic for the two patients, much thinner.
Now Katz (19, pp. 136ff.) has proved that two such surfaces have the
same brightness threshold. There is, then, as Gelb has pointed out, an
apparent contradiction between the depth of the colors as seen by his
patients and their insistence as measured by these threshold experiments.
Experiments, however, which are being carried out in my laboratory at
the moment have yielded results which take the edge off this argument.
We repeated the Ackermann type of experiment, measuring the color
threshold of a ring on a neutral ground of equal brightness. Now this
neutral ground is in the one case a dark gray well illumined, in the other
a light gray in the shade — care being taken that the two when viewed
through holes in a screen look exactly alike, i.e., reflect the same amount
of light per unit area. Under these conditions a small but consistent dif-
ference appeared in the color thresholds, the light ring in the shade requir-
ing a greater amount of color than the dark one in the light.
This result would be in opposition to Katz's findings, if the two methods
of investigation were comparable, which they are not. It remains as a
task for our experiments, which we hope to publish before long, to show
the relation between the two methods. This task has a rather general as-
pect; it means an investigation of the relation existing between thresholds
and insistence.
However, our results remove the obstacle in the way of our explanation
of the different depth which the different brightnesses possessed for Gelb's
patients. For now there is harmony between depth and threshold; the
brighter-looking color is thinner and has a higher color limen than the
darker even if the two colors result from the same retinal stimulation.
Since the facts of the case, however, are not yet clearly established, it
might seem as though I should have done better not to mention them at all.
But this would have been against the purpose of this paper which, as I
said at the beginning, wants to show Gestalt psychology at work. Be-
sides, I hope, these discussions have made it plain that the color and the
space aspect of our perception cannot be treated independently of each
other.
Let us summarize: the discussion of this second section has corroborated
the conclusion reached in the first. But whereas we treated there of
cases of relatively high organization, we have now considered cases with
reduced organizing power. Not only is tridimensional vision, as a result
K. KOFFKA 177
of organization, possible without binocular parallax and experience, but
inasmuch as less articulate organization seems prior to more articulate
organization, tridimensional vision must be the earlier form, in which bidi-
mensional, plane surfaces arise only with progressive capacity of the or-
ganic systems for organization.^®
Ill
Let us now turn to the other extreme, to cases of highly articulated
depth perception such as we find most pronounced in binocular vision.
Is there any connection between the efficacy of binocular parallax and the
effects we have so far described? Of course, we must confine ourselves
to a few aspects of this problem. This field abounds in both experimental
investigations and theoretical discussion, which cannot possibly find place
in this article. But it is justified to include our problem in this account
of the Psychologies of 1930 since a few investigations have appeared during
this last five years which may inaugurate a new epoch of experimenting and
theorizing. However, before we take up these new contributions, it will
be useful to state some of the problems involved in the theory of parallactic
depth perception.
Human binocular vision^'^ is the result of the combination of the processes
started in the two single eyes. Even the simplest facts of binocular vision
reveal that this combination is ruled by certain laws which state the cor-
respondence between the two members of this paired organ. In the classi-
cal investigations the discovery of this correspondence point for point has
been a task of great importance. There we find the definitions of corres-
ponding and disparate points, and for the latter the distinction between
cross and longitudinal disparate ones {quer- und Idngs-disparat). Also it
is generally conceded that cross disparation is one of the most important
factors for the perception of depth, provided it does not exceed a certain
amount. If it does, we see two objects instead of one. "Tridimensional
vision, the vision of the object as solid, is a halfway house between single
and double vision ; to see a thing solid is a compromise between seeing it
as spatially one and seeing it as spatially two" (34, p. 310).
Let us discuss this seemingly so simple statement of facts.
1) How does retinal disparity produce perception of depth? Ac-
cording to the nativistic theory, which was most clearly and thoroughly
elaborated by E. Hering and his followers, retinal disparity is the stimulus
for depth just as location on the single retina is the stimulus for direction :
"The localization of a point relative to the nuclear plane has to be conceived
as a physiological function of a definite pair of retinal points. In this sense
We may ascribe to a definite pair of retinal points a space value, and may
^*In this connection I want to quote a passage from Bentley's Field of Psychol-
ogy: "The surface may be mathematically simpler than the solid, but it does not
denote either a simpler function of the organism or a more ancient achievement
of the race" (2, p. 216).
"According to Kohler's experiments the same seems to be true for the anthro-
poids (21).
178 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
contend that this space value is stable, i.e., independent of the localization
of the nuclear plane" (16, p. 54). In other words, the relation between the
perception of a certain depth and the excitation of two disparate points is
perfectly analogous to the relation between the perception of a certain
color and the stimulation by light of a certain composition. In the most
recent American presentation of the subject such a clear-cut view is re-
placed by statements that the disparity is "utilized by the brain to see the
object in three dimensions" or that the tendency towards diplopia, which
always exists with disparate stimulation, "is normally transformed into
a depth impression." But the terms "utilization" and "transformation"
seem to me rather inane as long as we are not told what concrete processes
they are meant to denote. I shall mention only that Jaensch proposed a
theory of disparation according to which its effect is not direct but medi-
ated by a certain behavior of attention and of the convergence mechanism
concomitant with it (17, p. 102). None of these three answers, viz., the
stimulus-sensation, the utilization-transformation, or the attention theory
seems satisfactory — the second because of its vagueness, the first, as chiefly
Jaensch has shown, because it is in disagreement with many facts and
also because it puts an end to further questions, the last because the ten-
dency in psychology has been to eliminate the ill-defined term of atten-
tion more and more from its explanations (32) and because it puts the
cart before the horse.
2) The theory, as usually transmitted, contains the alternative of either
double images or depth effect, leaving the depth localization of the double
images in the dark, whereas this localization has played an important part
in many and some of the ablest experiments on double images and their
theoretical interpretation. Helmholtz already knew perfectly well that
double images may have a depth localization with regard to the nuclear
plan (13, pp. 362 £f.). This fact destroys the apparent simplicity of the
theory completely, it is incompatible with the two first interpretations
mentioned under 1 above.
3) These same interpretations, and as I believe also the third, are open
to a last criticism which will give us the first indication of the true solu-
tion. I may ask: What right have we to speak of disparate stimulation?
This may seem a foolish question, since it can be geometrically shown that
certain points will always be so projected that they do not fall on corres-
ponding points, i.e., that they will be disparate. This is, of course, incon-
testably true, but it is geometry and not psychophysics. For, purely geo-
metrically speaking, as long as we see with both eyes, pairs of correspond-
ing points are always simultaneously stimulated. If Figure 13 represents
two stereoscopic pictures A and A', falling on the left and right foveas, then
the point on the right retina corresponding to B, though it would not be
stimulated by a black point, is stimulated by the white of the paper, and,
mutatis mutandis, the same is true for C. Why then do we correlate B and
C and not B with a point B' on the white ground of the right pic-
ture and C with a C on the white ground of the left? Geometrically
K. KOFFKA
179
there exists not the slightest reason for the true coordination. One cannot
even answer that it is the quality of the stimulation, the blackness versus
the whiteness, which justifies us in coordinating B and C. For one reason
this means that we leave the ground of pure geometry and enter the realm
of existing properties or processes and then we should be obliged to ex-
plain physiologically why equal processes correspond to each other instead
B A
• •
C* A*
• •
FIGURE 13
of mere locations. And as a matter of fact this is the kind of theory we
shall have to make. But before we do this we must turn to the other reason
which makes it impossible for the traditional view to fall back on equality.
Already Helmholtz has shown that we get the stereoscopic effect from two
drawings of which the one is black on white, the other white on black.
If we apply this to our simple case, we should have to change one part of
our Figure 13, say the right, by making its background black and the two
dots white. Then the point which corresponds to point B on the right
retina would also be stimulated by black, and the point that corresponds
on the left retina to C also by white, and we should have no reason what-
ever to correlate the black point B with the disparate and white point C.
It appears, therefore, that we have been somewhat too naive in our defi-
nition of disparity and correspondence. Obviously we have committed
what Kohler calls the experience error (24, pp. I76f.). And yet the
fact remains that disparity is a factor of the greatest power in producmg
depth. This means that our concept of disparate images can no longer
be taken geometrically. Instead we must accept it as a dynamic fact and
try to explain it by the interaction of real processes.^^
If we see any object binocularly as one, it means that the two processes
started in the retinas and proceeding along the optical tracts become united
into one process in that part of the brain where the two optical tracts are
brought together, which I shall call the combination zone. This holds as
well for points that are projected on corresponding as for those that are
projected on disparate places. The fact that corresponding points exist
*^he following remarks are largely influenced by experiments performed and
hypotheses proposed by Lewin and Sakuma (27). It is impossible to report the
details of this work and to indicate the points where my explanation differs from
theirs.
180 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
indicates a certain anatomic-physiological structure of the optic sector. The
sector is so constituted that, normally, excitation starting from correspond-
ing points will form one process in the combination zone. Since the struc-
ture of the organ must be considered as a systemic condition of the processes
that occur within it, it is clear that exceptions to our rule are possible.
They will occur if the properties of the processes, occuring under these
systemic conditions, are such that a unification is impossible. Then we
should expect them to stay apart with a stress towards unification.
But for the moment we are concerned with the normal case. Applied to
disparate points, it would mean that here the systemic conditions are op-
posed to a unification of the two processes producing diplopia as the natural
result. Therefore we see that many psychologists and physiologists try
to save diplopia, even in the case of clear depth perception without double
images, by reverting to special hypotheses which explain why in these cases
we do not become aware of double images. This is another case where the
psychologist introduces into experience data which, though not actually
experienced, should, according to his theory, be experienced.^^ We accept
double images only where they are really seen. But in these cases which
we are discussing now, perception of a single object or point in spite of
its disparate projection, we stand by our original proposition: if one point
is seen, then the two processes from the two eyes must have united. As
the systemic conditions as such would prevent such a combination, we must
look out for special forces which bring it about. These forces must be
forces of attraction between the monocular processes.
Of course, if this whole approach to our problem is right, we ought to
be able to demonstrate the existence of these forces. Fortunately we pos-
sess this proof : lines close together in the visual field attract each other ;
if each is given to one eye, this attraction will result in an eye movement
of fusion which unites the lines by bringing them on corresponding
sections of the two retinas. In his contribution to the Psychologies of 1925,
Kohler has explained this sufficiently (23, p. 192, and 22, pp. 536f.).^**
Disparate points^^ will then attract each other and tend to produce move-
ments of fusion. But in those cases where we see single in spite of dis-
parity there are always other points which we see single without disparity.
Consequently eye-movements which would fuse our disparate points would
separate our fused ones, and the total stress in the system would not be
diminished. Thus under these conditions the motor system would be in
an unstable equilibrium, which is in harmony with the facts as observed by
Jaensch."^ In single vision with disparate points we have then a unifica-
tion of processes in the sensory field itself without eye movements. This
unification has to overcome the constraints of the systemic conditions. This
"Bentley has sharply criticized this procedure and its application to our case (2).
""Other proofs for the attraction of the two monocular processes in (27).
^This is an illicit abbreviation for: processes in the combination zone aroused
from disparate points.
^Consequently Jaensch's theory, which we have criticized above, becomes super-
fluous. Of course, the details cannot be elaborated here.
K. KOFFKA 181
apparently it can do if the disparity is not too great and if no other forces
are in the way.
At least certain experiments of Jaensch's seem to warrant such an as-
sumption (17, pp. 90fF.). In these experiments the subjects were pre-
sented with incandescent filaments vertically suspended and seen through
a screen with an opening 10 x 40 cm. The two lateral threads were in a
plane parallel to the frontal plane of the observer while the middle one
projected from the plane of the others towards the observer by 6, 8, and
12 cm. Under these conditions not all of the luminous lines can be pro-
jected on corresponding retinal lines, and, accordingly, if the room was
light, the observers saw the arrangement of this prism very clearly. But
when the room was totally darkened so that nothing was visible but the
three luminous threads, — they were enclosed within a dark box to pre-
vent their light from illumining the rest of the room — the prism appeared
flat, occasionally even as a plane surface. This may be interpreted in the
following way: let us, for simplicity's sake, assume that the fixation is on
the middle line; then projection of the two side lines would be disparate.
But in the combination zone the two disparate line processes would be
united without any other change if the room is dark. If the room is not
dark, unification takes place also, but it can no longer occur in the plane,
because each of these disparate line processes now has a well-defined dis-
tance from other objects, and this distance would be distorted by the simple
fusion that occurs in the dark. Otherwise expressed, the other objects in
the visual field prevent a mere lateral displacement of any of the disparate
lines. The attraction between these two processes has to overcome not
only the constraints of the system but also forces existing between them
and other processes. In such a case the union of the lines takes place in
the third dimension. How this takes place we are at present unable to
say. In that respect our theory is no better off than the older ones, ex-
cept for the fact that we make an actual force responsible for this effect
and that this force cannot produce the union -within the plane. But our
theory has the great advantage over the older ones that it conceives of
binocular depth perception as a process of organization produced by stresses
existing between the visual processes themselves. Thus it connects binocu-
lar depth perception both with monocular depth perception and with eye
movements, and it opens our field for new experimentation. Thus it should
not to be too difficult to test whether my explanation of Jaensch's results is
right or not.
To show the applicability of this hypothesis, I will discuss a few more
facts. We have postulated a force of attraction between the two double
images as the cause of their union. If we now increase the amount of the
disparity so as just to make the union impossible, have we thereby also ex-
cluded those forces of attraction? Such a view would be unwarranted.
For although we have to assume that the strength of these forces is an in-
verse function of distance, we cannot believe that passing from a point
where these forces manifest themselves in union and stereoscopic effect to
a point in its close proximity, we all of a sudden change the force from a
182 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
considerable value to zero. Therefore we must assume that these forces
will persist between double images even when they are not capable of
achieving their union. But then the same stresses are operative which we
have discussed before, and consequently we ought to expect the same kind
of depth effect. Furthermore, if the disparity is small, a slight amount of
displacement will accomplish the unification, producing a relatively low
degree of stress in the system. If the disparity is greater, the stress in the
system may be relatively great in spite of the fact that no union occurs.
Again the facts are in good agreement with this expectation. Thus Helm-
holtz already reports a good stereoscopic effect under conditions where the
disparity is so great that double images appear (13, pp. 362 f.). Pfeifer
(30, pp. 130ff.),^^ who made a quantitative study of the depth localization
of double images, has found that uncrossed double images are seen farther
away than the object if seen single.^^
If the disparity is increased further, the forces between the two double
images will eventually grow so small that they cannot overcome the con-
straints of the system, no displacement will take place, no effective stress
will arise, and consequently the double images will appear in the same
plane as the fixation point. How great the disparity must be for this effect
to appear depends upon the total organization. If one fixates a point on
a thread extending sagittally one will see two threads crossing one another
X-like at the fixation point and extending forward and backward. This
experiment is interesting from two points of view. On the one hand,
the double images of the parts of the threads far away from the fixation
point will be widely separated from each other without losing their depth
localization, whereas double images of isolated points of the same disparity
would be seen without any depth effect. On the other hand, the parts
FIGURE 14
near the fixation point have a disparity which remains below the threshold
for double vision for isolated lines or points. In other words, if the thres-
hold were independent of the field organization, we should expect to see
not an X but a figure like Figure 14, where F signifies the fixation point.^^
^^Cf. also Kaila (18), who describes elegant and simple experiments which
demonstrate the localization of double images. The two articles mentioned contain
many references to other publications on the same subject.
^*This is easily seen by taking one's foot as the object, and fixating one's finger
to produce the double images of the foot. Then it will be seen that the double
images appear to be farther away than one's foot when fixated and seen single.
^This fact has been employed by Trendelenburg and Drescher (35), who have
systematically investigated this case.
K. KOFFKA 183
Here the organization into two straight lines prevents the union of the
double images near the fixation point and maintains the depth effect be-
tween the far disparate double images at the ends. As Trendelenburg
and Drescher have pointed out, a slight modification in the stresses obtain-
ing in the field can change the perception of the lines so that they are seen
in the shape of Figure 14.^® This last experiment has shifted our dis-
cussion. We see now that our presentation so far has been too simple, inas-
much as it has dealt with the forces existing between double images as
though they were independent of the organization existing in the rest of
the field. Instead, the forces which have formed the topic of our discus-
sion must be considered as parts of the total field organization. Wherever
we experiment with so-called simple stimulus constellations, the organiza-
tion of the different parts of the field is unstable and may shift from mo-
ment to moment. Therefore we must be prepared to get changing results
if we make our double-image experiments with such simple constellations.
This fact has been shown by Lewin and Sakuma (27, pp. 352 f.), and is
also confirmed by Pfeifer's results.
This influence of the organization of the field leads to another question :
Where does this organization take place? Is it a matter exclusively of
the combination zone or does it already occur within the monocular
processes? We possess overwhelming evidence that the latter is the case,
thanks particularly to Lau's experiments (25, 26) which he arranged to
prove this proposition. He produced a stereoscopic effect by uniting two
lines which were projected on corresponding retinal lines, but which
through slightly different illusion patterns were distorted to a different de-
gree.^^ In other words, when the two eyes give rise to line processes,
which in spite of corresponding stimulation are as different from each other
as line processes which would be produced by disparate stimulation, then
the same depth effect appears. This shows that each part process before
the combination in the combination zone must have had its own organiza-
tion, because only when organized in their respective fields will these lines
be shaped in such a way that their union results in depth. And the same
fact is proved, as Lau has also pointed out, by that experiment of Helm-
holtz' which we have discussed before, in which a drawing in black on
white is united with a drawing in white on black and produces the stereo-
scopic effect (see above, p. 179).
A last proof, which at the same time throws light on the organization in-
volved, is furnished by an experiment which I have recently performed.
Figure 15 illustrates again a stereoscopic slide. Each eye is presented with
a full and a dotted line, drawn with India ink on transparent mica. The
two full lines are united by fixation. The two dotted lines are so arranged
that, when they are equidistant from the two full lines, the dots of the one
fall into the interstices between the dots of the other, resulting in a broken
^"The explanation of these authors seems to me quite unsatisfactory. It is of
the type criticized on p. 180.
^"He used both the Zollner and the Hofler illusions.
184 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
line with small interstices and lying in the same plane as the full line. If
now the right dotted line is moved a little to the right, the combined dotted
line recedes behind the plane of the fixated line ; if moved towards the left,
it protrudes from it. Now no dot of either line has a counterpart dot of
the other line in the same cross-section with which it could form a dis-
parate pair. There are no cross disparate pairs of points. But the lines
as wholes are cross disparate and therefore show the depth effect, and this
organization must be an organization in the monocular processes.
FIGURE IS
We give one last application. At the end of our second section we showed
that forces producing the formation of surfaces presuppose a great stabilitj
of the system. The same idea must be applied to the stresses which form
the basis of our explanation of depth perception. If the stability of the sys-
tem is reduced, the double images will be united without a stress sufficient
to create a depth effect. Consequently we should suppose that Gelb's two
patients, whom we have discussed in the second section, should provide us
with evidence for this conclusion, if we remember that everything they saw,
quite apart from stereoscopic effect, had depth. Of course, one could not
make stereoscopic experiments with patients whose perceptive faculties were
so greatly impaired. But a simpler and cruder experiment gives us the
desired confirmation. "If the patients observed a circular or square colored
plate presented in a frontal parallel plane which was turned around a verti-
cal axis through a certain angle, the patient saw now a frontal parallel
color in elliptical or oblong form" (9, p. 210). However, the patients
would see objects in other than frontal parallel orientation if the angle
through which the plates were turned exceeded a certain amount. Just
as the thickness of the object, so would this angle depend upon the bright-
ness of the color; the brighter the color the smaller the angle, the darker
the greater. This shows that disparate lines can be united without effec-
tive stress if the disparity is not too great. And the stress will appear
the sooner the brighter and, that means according to our previous discussion,
the more stable the separate images are.
K. KOFFKA 185
It seems, then, that our hypotheses are able to explain a number of facts,
but I am fully aware that there are far more facts which I have not at-
tempted to explain and among them many which I could not explain at
the present moment. My conclusion is not that therefore my hypothesis
is premature, but that it should be applied to an experimental treatment
of the inexplicable facts. Then it will be proved how much truth it con-
tains.
The general significance of this hypothesis is that our space perception in
all three dimensions is the result of organized brain activity and that we can
understand our space perception only in terms of organization, i.e., in terms
of actual dynamic processes, and not in terms of mere geometrical stimu-
lus-sensation correlations. From this point of view the third dimension
-does not offer a special problem accruing to the problem of the perception
of length and breadth; rather is bidimensional perception a special case of
tridimensional perception. Psychology of "sensation" and perception has
lost the position it held in the beginning of the new era of our science just
because it was so dead a subject. The distribution of space values on the
retinas is indeed a question which will not arouse the enthusiasm of psy-
chologists for a long time. But if we treat perception as the result of ever-
changing stresses producing new and ever new organizations, we shall find
in our subject something of the drama of life, the interest in which has
attracted most of us to psychology.
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9. Gelb, a. tJber den Wegfall der Wahrnehmung von Oberflachenfarben.
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12. . tJber den Einfluss der Erfahrung auf die Wahrnehmung. II.
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Handbuch der Augenheilkunde. Part I, Chap. 12.)
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xiv+590.
CHAPTER 10
STRUCTURE, TOTALITY OF EXPERIENCE,
AND GESTALT*
Friedrich Sander
University of Giessen
The demand upon psychology, the science of psychical reality in all its
phases, to dwell no longer in the narrow confines of conscious phenomena,
has become more and more insistent the more we have succeeded in de-
termining, completely and systematically, the conditions or conditional rela-
tions of actual experiences and attitudes. An analysis of all relevant con-
ditions has necessarily compelled a recognition of some real and active
agency, besides the total complex of external conditions or "stimuli," on
the one hand, and the physiological conditions, on the other — a psychical
principle beyond the bounds of the mere phenomenal given. Regarding the
nature and magnitude of this transphenomenal, psychically active reality,
opinions have been extremely divergent. The least removed from the stand-
point of mere-consciousness psychology is the doctrine of traces of former
experiences, which regards past sense impressions as operative in the present
conscious manifold in the form of "residua," that lead some sort of mysteri-
ous existence and occasionally pop up in the realm of actual consciousness.
The extreme opposite is the view that some mere-conscious mental prin-
ciple is the true reality, and the world of consciousness mere illusion, in
fact a concealing mask. Both extremes seem to commit fundamental
error in opposite directions. In the former case, i.e., the recognition of
some residual component in present experience, everything that exceeds the
limits of the immediate stimulus pattern is referred to dispositional after-
effects of previous experiences, i.e., previous contents of consciousness, and
thus the sphere of consciousness is not really transcended. In the latter, on
the other hand, the world of consciousness is degraded at the outset to
mere illusion by the assumption of an unconscious hiding behind the actual
p.henomena, so that all data of scientific research are ruled out from the
very start and speculative theories regarding the nature and intentions of
the unconscious introduced in their stead. In dealing with either of these
points of view, we must bear in mind that scientific psychology should take
the totality of experience for its point of departure, and not thoughtlessly
sacrifice that empirical material which is the very basis of its procedure in
favor of a one-sided theory that does violence to the facts; but that, none
the less, it should muster courage to look beyond, or rather behind, immedi-
ate experience, and critically, cautiously approach the non-conscious realms
in search of that process, now tempestuously, now calmly unfolding, which
is the symphony of living experience.
*Submitted in German and translated into English for the Clark University
Press by Susanne Langer,
[188]
FRIEDRICH SANDER 189
That epoch of psychology which dealt with consciousness alone, ex-
pressed, for instance, in the soul-concept of a Wilhelm Wundt, for whom
the actuality of the soul was exhaustively given with that of immediate
consciousness, may have been a necessary stage, but has certainly been
transcended. A pure consciousness-psychology became impossible as soon
as psychological research went beyond the mere analysis of elementary
sense data. Coincident with the advent of new problems — problems which
were new to this scientific epoch, but had always held an important posi-
tion in prescientific psychology — ^was another factor which helped to over-
come the one-sided phenomenalistic standpoint, and that was the change in
the basic views and principal concepts of our science. This change was first
apparent in a negative way, in the repudiation of the traditional ideal of
the exact natural sciences, especially physics and its hypothetical construc-
tions. The phenomenalistic prejudice of the previous epoch, the limitation
of all researches to the content of consciousness, is closely related to the
theoretical primacy of notion of elements, and the assumption of a thorough-
going and unequivocal dependence of such "elements" on specific stimuli.
This limitation to consciousness-phenomena and their fictitious separation
into ultimate elements and their corresponding stimuli simply admitted of
no problems that did not fit into the conceptual frame of this psychology.
Thus from the phenomenalistic reduction of the psychological sphere
there followed other prejudices. I merely make mention of three such
neglected fields: the problem of mental development, the problem of
emotional life, and of personality. Elements do not develop. They may
aggregate in varying numbers, and according to the frequency of their
associations arrange themselves in variously complex patterns — but real
development, in the full sense of the word, means something more than this.
Hence the non-genetic character of the old phenomenalistic element-psy-
chology, which was based almost exclusively on description of the conscious-
ness of adult subjects without any inquiry into genetic and social conditions.
And furthermore, this psychology, whose chief tendency was toward an
analytic division of the content of consciousness into elementary sensations,
by its sensualistic prejudice ruled out the fundamentally important realm
of emotional life. Feelings, in the sense of indivisible qualities of conscious-
ness as a whole,^ are destroyed by analysis. And one central problem of
all mental science does not exist at all for a mere-consciousness psychology,
namely, the problem of personality. A psychology based exclusively on
consciousness phenomena has no access to the problem of personality. For
here we are not dealing with an actual phenomenon of consciousness nor
sequence of such phenomena, but with a structural principle which endures
beyond the immediate moment, with psychodispositional continuous forms,
which take part in determining each separate experience as well as each
action, and assert themselves again and again in all vital expression despite
any changes that may occur in the environmental conditions. It is through
^For this conception, outlined by Cornelius (1) and developed by Krueger,
cf. Krueger (6).
190 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
this transphenomenal psychical principle that all our single acts derive their
meaning and interconnection. This necessity of crossing over the narrow
confines of consciousness into the transphenomenal sphere of this psychical
principle which conditions the actual events of experience applies not only
to the problem of personality, where it is most evident, but also to the
above-mentioned cases of emotional life and of mental development. In
this developmental process there seem to be unconscious formative causes
at work, which let phase upon phase evolve with internal necessity and
ever-increasing complexity; in emotional life the subject becomes directly
aware of his own "essence," his tendencies and valuations above and beyond
the present moment, through the form wherein his feelings present them-
selves, the emotive totality-value of his consciousness as a whole.
The following pages contain an attempt to justify the assumption of a
transphenomenal effective psychic reality, a complex of psychodispositional
conditions, even in a field of research which the past era of psychology pro-
posed to master from the mere-consciousness point of view — the field of
perception-theory. Sense perception seems more dependent on the external
conditions of the physical environment than any other department of men-
tal life. The assumption of a constant coordination of stimulus and sen-
sation, a dogma of the older school, did not seem to admit any participation
of spiritual influences and unconscious forces that might be postulated as
transphenomenal reasons for the actual events in experience, with possibly
the exception of after-effects or residua of such former events. Thus the
demonstration of psychodispositional conditioning in the realm of sen-
sory contents of consciousness must be rated as particularly important,
especially as this realm is the most accessible to exact scientific observation.
That the older sort of psychology expected to get along with its purely
phenomenalistic outfit is undoubtedly due in part to the fact that its dis-
ciples considered certain experiences and aspects of life not worthy of scien-
tific investigation, or failed entirely to observe those things which pointed
with peculiar insistence to transphenomenal conditioning factors. These
things are the facts of the wholeness of all living experience (Erlebnis-
ganzheit), and the structural organization of part-wholes (Gestaltetheit
von Teilganzen) in the stream of experience at any moment. These
facts were rediscovered in the nineties of the last century, but it was only
in the last decades that they were brought within the bounds of exact
research. Among these totality-factors, it is again the emotional aspects
of experience that necessitate a resort to transexperiential, constant ten-
dencies of the soul. The reason why these holistic aspects, which
shall be forthwith described in more detail, were so completely over-
looked by the previous psychological epoch, lies in the essentially analytic
attitude of that time. That which our psychological researches under the
watchword of totality have been able to prove in detail — that qualities
which belong to a complex as a whole are obscured, even destroyed by an
extreme analytic attitude, an exceedingly detailed dissection into component
parts — that applies exactly to the analytic attitude of psychology toward
its object. The kind of psychology that is directed toward the discovery
of ultimate elements has "failed to see the woods for the trees."
FRIEDRICH SANDER 191
The study of totalistic aspects and the structural organization of the
actual content of consciousness, which were introduced by such transitional
conceptions as Wundt's "creative synthesis," Christian v. Ehrenfel's' "form-
qualities" {Gestaltqualitdten), or Dilthey's demand for a descriptive
psychology that should take the relational structure of experience for its
object, has demonstrated in every way the more than synthetic character
of the conscious manifold, especially through genetic researches, and there-
by upset the doctrine of the primacy of "simple" sensory elements. Grad-
ually the stark abstract concept of the psychological element has been over-
come. At first the character of an experiential whole, which is always
more than the sum of its parts, was treated as a datum of a secondary sort.
Even in the treatment of such simple facts as the wholeness of a melody,
a spatial figure, a volition, or a thought process, attempts were made to
explain its constitution out of parts. Whoever clung to the primacy of
elements was obliged somehow to account for this "qualitative more" that
transcended any mere combination of elements. So this period is charac-
terized by the theoretical introduction of conglutinative factors, such as
creative syntheses, production processes, collective attention processes, and
other such hypotheses all of a compromising nature, which on the one hand
take account of the special character and the independence of totality-
properties {Ganzqudlitdten) , and on the other retain the supposed primacy
of the old fictitious elements. It took an unprejudiced course of obser-
vations and comparisons, especially in the genetic field, under well-planned
systematically varied conditions, to disclose the factual and theoretical
importance of totality-properties.
The content of experience at any time cannot be given through the ex-
hibition of a manifold of elements, some of which cohere as groups or com-
plexes, but it is always a whole containing subordinate wholes that appear
more or less distinct from each other and from the general system. Only
a further and further dissection, and a destructive analysis, can ever
arrive at those disconnected pieces which the old psychology designated as
elements. The partial or subordinate wholes are distinguished among them-
selves by their various kinds and degrees of structural organization, they
are heterogeneous wholes, "externally" limited, internally variously mem-
bered and possessing a significant connectedness of all their members with
one another and with the greater totality. Such configurations may be ex-
perienced simultaneously or as continua in time. They may be conceived as
standing between two poles, nearer now to the one, now to the other —
between unorganized, unarticulated wholeness at the one extreme, and mere
discrete togetherness and sequence of elementary data, mere particularity at
the other — as closed, self-contained, self-determined structures with mutu-
ally distinguishable, structurally limited members. But as subordinate units
these configurations (Gestalten) always remain imbedded in more com-
prehensive experiential totalities, finally in the emotive totality-aspect of
the realm of consciousness itself at any time. The more comprehensive and
the less distinct and internally organized a subordinate totality is, the
nearer it approaches to the pole of emotive unity.
r
192 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
Therefore the study of configurations should never be content to regard
in isolation the structure that happens at the moment to be most evident,
but should proceed systematically to pass beyond the construct under ob-
servation and include the totality of the conscious field. Just as the con-
struct in question, as a subordinate whole, exhibits certain totality-proper-
ties, so does the inclusive whole of the field of consciousness itself. The
totality-properties of the whole content of consciousness are experienced as
"states of mind," as feeling-tones which belong to the experience in toto.
The "state of mind" (Zumutesein) in its qualitative particularity is de-
termined in one sense through all the subordinate wholes that are to be
found in the experiential content and their experienced relationships, which
in turn may possess different degrees of self-sufficiency; in another sense,
we find in its peculiarly dynamic traits of internal tendency just that which
we recognize as the transphenomenal psychic principle, which is the con-
ditional constant underlying all subordinate wholes with their varieties
of kind and degree. In these dynamic qualities, which play a dominant
role in the realm of emotions, there comes to expression the dynamics of the
functional unity of mental life or, as we may roughly say, the soul itself
and whither it is directed or "what it desires."
Under special conditions, as we have remarked, the dynamic qualities
of the total content of consciousness are experienced with particular force,
namely, at times when the configurations which sensory experience pre-
sents are quite different from what the dispositional conditions are adjusted
to meet. These dispositional features of the soul, with their dynamic
which strives for actualization, being themselves a totality, an organic
system of unconsciously active forces and impulsive tendencies, may — ac-
cording to Dilthey's precedent — be called structure. Thus structure in
our sense is not, as so often in present-day psychology, used synonymously
with Gestalt. Structure denotes the set of psychodispositional constants
conditioning the Gestalten of experience (5). How much of this condition-
ing complex which is called structure is to be regarded as psj^chical, and how
much as physical, is a matter of indifference; in the personal identity of
the experiencing subject these operate inseparably together. The struc-
tural constants of the body-soul totality are an independent set of condi-
tions, in relation to the external environment, for the forms of actual
experience as well as beyond these for the character of human activity
and its result, the work, since the somatic side of this psychophysical
totality, by reason of its physico-motor faculties, is able to exert an influence
upon the external world. The form of this performance and of the actual
content of experience indicates the dynamic function of psychical structure
to create configurations out of a totality.
In certain totality-properties of the entire consciousness, in the emotion-
ally tinged "state of mind," this structural dynamic becomes more defi-
nitely apparent in its proclivities. From this it follows that any descrip-
tion of Gestalt experiences, just because it is designed to prepare an analy-
FRIEDRICH SANDER 193
sis of the relevant conditions, cannot afford to neglect these emotive total-
ity-properties, which are not themselves configurations (Gestalten).
If it is true that our perceptions are not determined solely by physical
causes, as the old psychology, with its dogma of the unequivocal dependence
of sensations on specific stimuli firmly maintained, but are furthermore
determined in regard to their configuration by this other scheme of struc-
tural conditions, then it ought to be possible to create artificial conditions
which would yield effects of a structural dynamic principle in a particularly
obvious form. Such instances may be found abundantly in researches
wherein the part of the stimulus has been reduced to a minimum — to that
minimum which is just able to give rise to a Gestalt experience (9, 10, 11,
14, 3). Experiments of this sort are particularly successful in the field of
optics. The presentation of figures by a very brief exposure in the tachis-
toscope, in twilight vision or indirect vision, or in extreme miniature, all
have this trait in common, that a constellation of stimuli operates under
unfavorable conditions, too briefly, etc. The less the perception is de-
cisively influenced by the physical condition, the stimuli, the more freely
will the dynamic structure come into play and mould the phenomenal con-
tent in its own interest. The transition from maximally unfavorable to
normal circumstances gives rise to a whole series of sense experiences,
whereby the evolution of configurations is exhibited in logical order. [For
this process of gradual configuration I have suggested the term "genetic
realization" {Aktualgenese)^. In this configurative process the emergent
perceptual constructs are by no means mere imperfect or vague versions
of the final figure which appears under maximally favorable conditions,
but characteristic metamorphoses with qualitative individuality, "prefor-
mulations" {Vorgestalten). These properties, which certainly are not de-
termined by the constellation of stimuli, may be traced back to structural
causes, and let us deduce the direction toward which they tend in forming
the objects of experience. If, for instance, an observer is presented with an
irregular, interrupted linear figure, lighted up on a dark surface, in ex-
treme miniature, but gradually growing to "normal" size, the observer will
experience — often with intense emotional participation — a process of form-
emergence, as out of a continuous light nebula, originally circular as a
rule, figures arise, which in comparison with the end-figure are distinguished
by greater wholeness, compactness, and regularity, and approach the irregu-
lar final figure only step by step. From these "transformations" with
reference to the final form which is "adequate" to the stimuli, we may
gather the trend of the psychophysical sub-structure which we are con-
sidering; that trend is toward closed contours, toward compactness, in
short, toward geometrical regularity, symmetry, softening of all curva-
tures, parallelity, toward general as well as detailed conformity to the
primary spatial axes, the vertical and the horizontal, finally toward an
optimum of configuration on the level of geometrically primitive, non-
connotative, purely aesthetic significance; an ideal of meaning expressible
in terms of lines and planes alone. It is only with an increasing power of
the stimulating influence that these homogeneous, progressively differen-
194 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
dating, over-symmetrical preformations are debarred in favor of the claims
of the stimulus pattern. These figurations have one property vt^hich plainly
shows the interplay of structural subjective tendencies and the dictates of
the external stimuli, and that is the fluidity and mobility of these constructs.
The formation of the successive stages, which usually emanate one from
the other by sudden jerks, has a certain shading of non-finality; the inter-
mediaries lack the relative stability and composure of the final forms; they
are restless, agitated, and full of tensions, as though in a plastic state of
becoming. Their total mobility may in certain parts or regions be height-
ened to the point of actually perceived motion of particular lines, despite
an objective condition of perfect rest, namely, in those parts or regions
where the stimulus pattern tends in a different direction from the structural
forces. Thus a contour which according to the actual stimulus is in-
terrupted, but whose early appearance is closed due to the structural tend-
encies, is finally broken for the experiencing subject at the points of in-
terruption, with the increasing preponderance of the stimulus pattern, but
tends to close again at the next moment, only to open once more. This
opening and closing of the outline, caused by the interplay and antagonistic
tendencies of the conditioning factors, is experienced as violent motion. In
this apparent "eidogenic" motion under conditions of perfectly static stimu-
lation, we can trace directly the dynamic character of dispositional struc-
tures, which tend toward greatest possible symmetry. This structural
dynamic, which may be inferred from the phenomenal peculiarities of such
percepts to be one of the determining factors in the process of perception
itself, enters our immediate experience in the form of certain dynamic quali-
ties of the total "state of mind," in emotive qualitative totalities. The pecu-
liar mode of presentation of these prefigurations that are simplified relative
to some final form is in no wise comparable to that of final forms of similar
outline ; it is considerably richer in quality. Their regular formation is only
one trait of these closed self-sufficient constructs, which unfold with well-
ordered regularity, without exhausting themselves in these characteristics.
The evolution of these unitary, still unmembered constructs into signifi-
cant forms with increasing membral differentiation is not something that
the observer follows with cool objectivity, but all metamorphoses are en-
gulfed in a maximally emotional process of pronouncedly impulsive and
tensor nature, and take place through an intense participation of the whole
human organism. Every formation is experienced as a satisfactory fulfil-
ment of some inner urge, possessing the whole consciousness with dull
compressed feelings, an urge for formation of the formless, significance of
the meaningless. What passes here in the sphere of perception is repeated
in exaggerated measure in the higher realm of artistic or intellectual for-
mulation. Forms, as we said above, being articulated wholes with mem-
bers relative to the whole, are ranked between two antipodes, both of which
can be approximated only in experience — undifferentiated diffuse whole-
ness on the one hand, and unrelated, fragm,entary heterogeneity on the
other. Not only descriptively do they stand between these two opposites,
but as the ultimate goal of the tendencies of both. Out of the snarled, dull-
FRIEDRICH SANDER 195
feeling, original modes of experience, the structural tendencies of the soul
strive for organic differentiation with preservation of the psychic totality,
and likewise from the other end seek to bring together that which is frag-
mentary owing to external determinants, and to subject all parts and aspects
to a superior whole. Thus the starry heaven is not experienced as a col-
lection of separate stars, but in constellations in which each star receives
its special place. Or from a perfectly even sequence of strokes or impacts
a rhythm emerges, which subordinates every sound to a definite temporal
series. This incorporation of all items in an all-supporting rhythm occurs
quite by itself, often with irresistible constraint, like a work of uncon-
sciously operative forces of the soul. In these experiential membered forms
the internal dynamic of the structural architectonic tendencies finds ex-
pression again in the changing accentuation of elements in the series,
in the rhj'thmic repetition of subordinate totalities. The fulfilment of the
rhythm in turn lends to the total experience that emotive quality of
adequacy, living volatility, final orderliness (8). It is different if the
external stimulus will serve, indeed, to realize the structural dynamic, but
not to let it unfold in entire accord with its inherent tendencies — for in-
stance, if in our last example of so-called "subjective rhythmification" the
sounds follow each other too slowly or without any sort of regularity.
Under such conditions dissatisfactions, torturing tensions, and inner repudia-
tion are experienced, and again in qualitative emotional wholes, which prove
to be symptoms of non-fulfilment or violation of structural tendencies.
Whether the soul's interest in form lets diffuse totalities take organic
shape, or smelts fragmentary experiences together into a whole, the struc-
tural forces are always tending to coerce the experienced construction into
the best possible shape, despite opposed physical stimulatory influences.
Concerning what is meant by the best possible shape {optimale Gestaltet-
heit), something remains to be said. The above-mentioned experiments in
the actuo-genesis of forms under conditions of reduced stimuli have thrown
some light on the direction wherein we may seek the form-ideal for this
level of configuration. Another source of insight is the study of the pecu-
liar feeling-tone with which formulations of this sort are experienced. The
formulation of an experiential whole possesses now a satisfying tone, bal-
anced, matured, articulate, characteristic, now an unsatisfied air, weak,
tortured, impure, unattuned, spineless. Forms have different values in
direct experience; some have an experiential advantage over others, are
distinguished from the others. In these distinctions, which are expressed
in multifarious feelings, value-accents are experienced, which cannot be
explained through any analysis of the stimulus pattern, but point to struc-
tural tendencies. To an evenly graded series of stimuli there corresponds
not a series of perceived figures of corresponding values, but some of the
psychological products are distinguished by a marked qualitative in-
dividuality, whereas others display such individuality only vaguely, or
appear as indistinct transitional forms between two independent geometric
characters. To cite a simple example :^ if the width of a rectangle is varied
^Compare the researches by C. Schneider (12), carried on at my suggestion.
196 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
by small but even degrees from plus <» to minus °°, keeping the height
constant, an objectively even series of rectangles is generated. But psycho-
logically the M^hole series arranges itself into separate zones of definitely
differentiated peculiarities of form. At certain points, which are thereby
specially distinguished from all others, the formal character of a zone, let
us call it the zone's "eidos," is particularly pronounced. In our series of
rectangles the most definite zone, that v^^hich is most clearly distinguished,
is the zone of the perfect square. The character of "squareness" covers a
variable but always small number of gradations, which approximate to
the location of the ratio 1-1. At one point within this zone the "square-
ness" appears most clearly, neighboring forms are still interpreted as
"squares," howbeit not perfect, correct, accurate squares, but "bad"
squares.^ These bad squares may immediately be experienced as "good"
ones again, if the insistence of the stimulus is reduced, as for instance
through tachistoscopic presentation. With increasing departure from the
region of best expression of the square, the form-property "square" changes
abruptly to that of "rectangle." It is at this point in the objective series
where the "assimilation" of height and width, which occurs in the interest
of the persistent square with its balance of height and width, suddenly
gives place to an inevitable exaggeration of the difference between height
and width, again with the intention of expressing a typical rectangle. Fig-
ures which stand in the series just between two zones seem, so to speak, to
hang in the balance perceptually; a small alteration of the stimuli in one
direction or the other lets them incline to one side or the other, expressing
the character of either one or the other zone. For this reason the thres-
hold of variability for these transitional structures is very low, whereas in
the regions of most pronounced formal character, that of the square for
instance, considerable objective alteration is required to bring about a per-
ceptual change, to transport the form out of the squareness zone. This
accounts for the oft observed high threshold of variation of the square. A
similar condition holds for tonal configurations. There among the in-
numerable possible vibration ratios we recognize a small number of favored,
outstanding intervals. Small deviations from the pure vibration ratio
represent tone-forms, which, although they are still experienced as belong-
ing quite unequivocally to a definite zone, that of the octave or the fifth
for instance, are none the less heard to be out of tune, somehow impure.
Forms of this sort, which certainly enough belong to the region of a cer-
tain "eidos," but do not express this "eidos" in its purity, resemble prefor-
mations in their general character of non-finality; they are unstable, almost
mobile, and give to our experience a certain trend toward the ideal form.
A picture hanging crooked on the wall can become unbearable; it fairly
shrieks to be ranged along the dominant axes of the visual field, the verti-
cal and horizontal. Here we can recognize in dynamic, emotionally tinged
qualities of the experienced totality, clearly oriented forces of the psycho-
physical structure, which require a configuration of the perceptual field
'For the concept of "good" and "bad" patterns cf. Kohler (4).
FRIEDRICH SANDER 197
along structurally determined lines. Non-fulfilment of these structural
demands is expressed in emotional tensions: "It disturbs me, I cannot stand
it." In most cases, however, expression is not limited to these internal
repudiations, our experience of the dynamic nature of our consciousness
affects not only the sensory field, but sets the motor system of the psycho-
physical totality into sympathetic activity. These diffuse, tensive, keenly
adjusted motor complexes in their turn lend a decisive coloring to the whole
field of consciousness. These directed tensions aim to put the motor system
at the disposal of the structural tendencies, and to bring the physical condi-
tions perforce into harmony with the structural premises, thus achieving a
formulation of the perceptual experience in conformity to the structural
demands. Thereby the fluidity and impurity of form are obviated ; to re-
turn to our trivial example of the crooked picture, the directed dynamic
principle of the total experience tends to take possession of the motor sys-
tem, to put the picture straight.
These structures that incline toward the optimal forms in any given
level of meaning, and which are merely organic parts of the total struc-
ture of the personality, not only determine the experiential form-properties
of the perceptive field beside the physical influences, but strive for altera-
tions of the physical stimuli themselves, tending to make them converge
with the structural ideal of optimal configuration. This product of this
transphenomenal active and real principle of psychic structure is the work
which, through its formative characteristics expresses the direction of the
dynamic structural principle. The dynamic system of structural in-
terests is not only realized under certain external conditions which allow
it to mould the experience, is not only in readiness, expecting outer
occasions, so to speak, but strives from within, creative in its own right,
strives for the formulation of the physical environment toward a reali-
zation and fulfilment of its own immanent orientation.
With respect to our isolated field of perceptual constructs without ob-
jective significance, and their ideal formulation, the creative urge can be
demonstrated through many human performances. One needs but re-
member certain childish games of building and moulding. There we see
even young children creating out of formless clay, or out of heterogeneous
pieces of building material, not only forms which are supposed to repre-
sent objective things but also works of primitive but often very beautiful
form (13). These form-products of the creatively fashioning child show a
high degree of homogeneity and definite articulation at the same time ; now
they are serially rhythmized, now symmetrically membered, often surprising
in the regularity of their construction. In the form-properties of these con-
structs, which are not supposed to copy or symbolize any natural object,
but are without objective content, the aim of the constructive forces of
these subordinate structures is evident again. The child's joy in his play-
fully productive activity, the complete absorption of the youthful soul in
the work from its first conception to its completion, lets us see in the pro-
found emotional possession of the whole process the agency of original
interests of human nature. In adult persons these structural forces still
come easily into play, when the fulfilment of important purposes is de-
198 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
ferred through external circumstances and leaves room for playful activity.
In the various cases w^hen a man of this age and generation is obliged to
WT'ait, or is condemned by external influences to boredom, a pencil just
naturally comes to hand and goes to work on some piece of paper. Tele-
phone booths and committee rooms bear plentiful witness to this instinc-
tive urge of creativeness, which ordinarily is sentenced to inactivity by the
exigencies of the day's work. Ornamental scribblings of such origin, with-
out objective meaning, and often of remarkable geometric complexity, re-
mind one of certain entoptic phenomena, at whose regularity Goethe has
marvelled, as well as of the scribblings of the insane, in which these orna-
mental form-tendencies often overshadow everything else. In the activity
of these insane subjects, a sub-structure dominates in the pattern of the
total structure of the personality, which under normal conditions is rela-
tively unimportant.
The playful creations of childhood are early forms of the artistic
activity of the adult. The childish products have their analogues in the
non-representative, formal ornamentation of savages, and the architecture
of civilized man. Architecture, being free from the task of representing
anything, though it is partially determined by utilitarian factors, still allows
the configurative tendencies which are under consideration here plenty of
scope to participate in forming the work. The Gestalt properties of archi-
tectonic products let us infer the formative tendencies, the individual as
well as epochal modifications of the subordinate structure which is here
under consideration. The goal of Renaissance building is the complete,
fully finished work, the realization, without any loose ends, of the struc-
tural interests, through the building material. The high articulateness
of the architectonic products of the Renaissance, their closed and unified
character, their regularity and symmetry, the harmonic balance of masses
among the several members of the edifice, and in detail the dominance of
distinctive forms such as the circle, square, oblong with the golden mean —
all these Gestalt aspects produce the emotional effects which indicate the
realization without residuum of structural formative tendencies, the reso-
lution of their dynamic element. Hence the repose and liberating beauty
of the architectural masterpieces of this epoch. Quite different it is with
the baroque architecture, which does not, like the Renaissance, aim at the
articulate ideal, but stands still, so to speak, before the last metamorphosis
of the material, in order to immortalize in stone the dynamics of becoming,
to let it be experienced. Lack of finality together with very apparent,
sometimes unorganized unity, slight irregularity, and asymmetry, a distribu-
tion of masses in the total edifice which overaccentuates some details and
subordinates others, a preference for geometric forms which deviate slightly
from a standard figure, such as rectangles which are almost squares, el-
lipses which are near-circles, and so forth, are all peculiarities of shape
which cause the whole product to be ruled by a pronouncedly dynamic
quality. The incondite strives for perfection, the unorganized for organi-
zation, the belittled detail for recognition, the near-square for genuine
squareness. Hence the tremendous motivity, restlessness, excitement in
FRIEDRICH SANDER 199
baroque architecture, with its strain, stress, and swing in the total pat-
tern, which draws the spectator into the giddy state of Gestalt-evolution.
Herein is sought not the satisfaction of the Gestalt tendencies through the
remainderless articulation of the work, but the experience of the formative
impulse itself, in that the structural tendencies are realized but not carried
to the logical conclusion of their inclinations in the building material. In
both cases the analysis of Gestalt properties must fall back upon the struc-
tural presuppositions of Gestalt experience.
The foregoing discussion was intended to determine the participation
of dispositional interests of the soul which transcend the immediate present,
to determine their dynamic structure, anent certain holistic properties of
experienced perceptual forms and productions in a general way. Formu-
lation in accordance with structure is not only the goal toward which the
structural dynamic is directed, whose attainment is immediately expressed
in consciousness by an emotive sense of conclusion and completeness, but
is also a means of capacitating the soul to its highest achievements. For
instance, the task of impressing something on one's memory is easy in pro-
portion to the articulation of the material that is to be remembered. Who-
ever has performed memory tests with the piecemeal, senseless materials
which traditional memory psychology held in highest esteem, knows what
difficulties attend the memorization of such structural inconcinnities, and
how at every possible point formulations of one sort or another present
themselves automatically as aids in the solution of the proposed anti-struc-
tural task. Melodifying, rhythmifying, optical organization of all sorts, all
these are means of bringing the senseless fragments into a relational pat-
tern in order to facilitate the task. To these sensuous forms may be added
objectively significant relations, through which the separate items, being
made to stand for something, receive their meaning and are easily re-
producible with the totality. But we shall not speak further of these sym-
bolic constructions, important though they undoubtedly are. Thus in every
achievement of memory there is some such structural formulation of the
material that is to be retained, some organization of the learning-material
and the learning-process, to make the solution possible. Structural for-
mulation not only satisfies us directly but also leads to higher accomplish-
ments. Wherever structurally appropriate form is violated by external
conditions, the level of accomplishment sinks concomitantly. Here is an
instance from the realm of motor systematization : human motions are
essentially organized and sucessive, i.e., patterned. Whenever a normal
human being moves freely or dances, his motions appear in unbroken con-
tinuity, rhythmic organization, and swing. Even when his motions are
harnessed to definite purposes, as for instance the occupational gestures
(7), which are determined through outer circumstances by the nature of
tools and tasks, there still is room for symmetrical motor totalities, motor
melodies to develop. As long as implements and work tempo are, or can
be, adapted to the psychophysical structure of the working man, the unity
and ordonnance of the occupational movements are preserved and tend to
arrange themselves in characteristic labor rhythms, which find audible
200 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
expression in acoustic labor noises and songs, labor songs which retroac-
tively support and form the labor motions themselves. The pleasure at-
tendant upon rhythmically organized labor motions, which are practiced
by savages for their own sake, far beyond the demands of the work, is an-
other indication of the fulfilment of a participating. psychophysical struc-
ture complex. Quite different is the case, when the external conditions of
work do not permit a structurally appropriate patterning of motions to de-
velop. With the rhythm peculiar to the machine, the worker may have
movements imposed upon him which do not swing out in appropriate
articulation, but are exacted in an ever-repeating fragmentary, discon-
nected sequence, beginning again and again. Or the machine may cause
an acoustic counter-rhythm which moves outside the limits of psychophysi-
cal designs. Here the structural interests are not only unsatisfied by the
external conditions but actually violated. The result is a torturing dis-
satisfaction, exhaustion, and inner revolt against the foreign demands that
are made again and again with racking monotony. And as for the output,
it presents a considerable deficit as compared with accomplishment under
structurally appropriate conditions. Many endeavors of industrial psy-
chotechnics are concerned with the problem of adjusting the conditions of
work in such a way that they shall not only oppose the structural interests,
but shall develop and induce a natural unfolding of the human work im-
pulses in conformity with the immanent laws of structure. Occupational
motions of optimal formation, i.e., structurally appropriate motions, not
only entail satisfaction on the part of the worker, but permit his whole
body-soul complex to exhibit its highest working capacity, in quality as well
as quantity. The superiority of well-constructed work movements lies
chiefly in their constancy, which guarantees a high degree of precision.
Constancy is possible only where the structural interests of the ps5'^cho-
physical totality are completely dominant.
Even more powerfully than in cases where the environmental conditions
do not allow an optimally structural articulation to appear, inner dissatis-
faction and revolt are produced if an experiential totality is shaken by varia-
tions of the physical element, when a structurally acceptable constellation
of stimuli is experimentally varied in such a way that it leads not to a change
of configuration, but to a destruction of the form as such. For instance
(2), if one of the pictures in a stereoscope is turned, with the line of vision
for its axis, out of the position which is best for binocular unification, i.e.,
out of the focus of parallelism of all homologous distances, the unified
whole will not immediately divide into double images, but will be seen in
single vision through several degrees of deviation. The field of integration
within which a totality is experienced, that is to say, one image is seen,
varies in size directly with the degree of organization of the experienced
whole. The more highly integrated whole is more capable than one of
low integration to preserve its unity, because it is more deeply rooted struc-
turally; and it has more elasticity in adapting and asserting itself under
external conditions which are far from optimal. Toward the limits of
the integration zone, near the line of division into double images, peculiar
FRIEDRICH SANDER 201
changes occur in the experiential manifold, which are intimately connected
with a highly characteristic coloring of the mental state, with an alteration
of the emotive sense of wholeness of the total consciousness. The totality,
which heretofore was stable, grows restless, flickering, tremulous, full of
tension and mobility. The observers report "a veritable fear of dissolu-
tion," "a mood that seems to presage disaster." And together with this
torturing fear of the violent destruction of the unity of the optical field,
the total experience is characterized by an emotional directedness, a hank-
ering after the preservation of the optical content in its entirety, as though
the form were defending itself against its annihilation and commanding
the sincerest sympathy of the experiencing subject for the assertion of its
being. In these tense experiences the structural tendencies, aiming at the
preservation of homogeneous totalities, are again evident in emotive aspects
of the experience as a whole. As the limit of integration is passed, the
optical figure vanishes into chaos, a transition which is the more over-
whelming, the more Gestalt was possessed by the previous unit. The forces
directed toward preservation of unity and optimal configuration are over-
whelmed by alteration of the external conditions. The tension between the
structural capacities and the demands of the stimulus pattern has become
unbearable, the structural tendencies can no longer prevail. Unrest, ner-
vous excitement, fear, and despair are the emotive states of mind in which
the unfulfilment as well as the violation of structural interests, failure
to attain the goal, find expression.
The sensible configuration of the perceptual field, all the peculiarities of
Gestalt which have so far been mentioned, are subject to other unit prop-
erties. In the first place, there are contexts of meaning. Sense patterns
of perception are not exhausted by their formal properties, but are objects
of variegated significance; they belong to a concretely membered world
of facts and relations among facts. Although the peculiarities of form of
our sensible units, their distinctness and organization, are actually pre-
suppositions of any objective organization of our perceptual field into rela-
tively stable "things," that which we have referred to above as optimal non-
connotative formulation may yet become relatively insignificant compared
to the objective relations of meaning and factual contexts which reign as
dominant wholes over all subordinate constellations. On the other hand,
certain units of meaning occur which cut clear across the multiplicity of
"things," gather some aspects of this multiplicity together under the head
of "concepts," and leave others completely out of account. A "thing" may
now figure as an item in a coherent group of material facts, now it may
become a link in the serial pattern of an activity, for instance, as a means to
an end. "The same" thing presents itself differently, has various totality-
properties, according to whether we regard it as a member of a whole
thought process or experience it within a unit of action. Each of these or-
ganic total contexts has its peculiarities of form, different degrees of artic-
ulation, and its optimal configuration, the attainment of which fills the
thinking or acting subject with a satisfaction which is as profound as the
forms in question are important to his general orientation. Just as, despite
202 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
all non-connotational perceptual wholes and all changes of the physical en-
vironment, the articulated unity, self-sufficiency, and coherence of organiza-
tion which ever asserts itself and expresses itself in feelings, points to the
presupposition of psychodispositional conditioning principles, the participa-
tion of structural forces, so the logical properties of other presentational
wholes, of experienced facts, organized thought sequences, processes of voli-
tional activity point to other conditioned systems, other sub-structures of the
integrated personality. Wherever in a connotative unit we meet with a
member which does not conform to the unit character of the whole, appears
gratuitous therein, or jeopardizes its unity, or whenever a member is missing
in such a context, these facts are experienced as totalities, and the entire con-
sciousness has the emotive coloring of something ill-attuned, contradictory,
and insufficient, unfinished, and open. And wherever the dissonance is
not removed, the gap not closed up, there occurs that torturing, high-
strung unrest, that peculiar impatience to overcome this condition through
structurally appropriate organization and completion according to the ex-
perienced orientation. The nervous strain experienced in the face of the
task of formulating an intellectual context which is imperfectly presented,
stands in direct functional relation with the dynamic and differentiation
of the sub-structure which is being realized, which pushes the problem into
the center of consciousness again and again, until it finds its structurally
adequate solution. In a similar way, the incompleteness of an intended
action which for external or internal reasons has not been carried out, re-
mains constantly and emotively in the background of consciousness, as a
steady reminder, and in order to break forth at the next opportunity, per-
chance in the stillness of a sleepless night, threatening in its unsettledness,
crying to be settled. In these dynamic, often torturing qualities, which
color the whole of consciousness with a characteristic tone, the once-real-
ized structural tendencies press again and again for a satisfactory conclu-
sion. To this tormenting inconclusiveness is opposed the deliverance of
conclusion, of finality, when the whole content of an organic activity rounds
and completes itself. Or when a long-sought and suspected connection
suddenly flashes into mind in perfectly consistent formulation, when frag-
mentary items suddenly acquire meaning, or a tormenting chaos falls into
visible order, then the emotive general condition of consciousness changes
at one stroke. The confusions of feeling that accompanied the emergence
of the Gestalt resolve themselves in a liberating sense of correctness and
definitiveness, states in which the soul and its structural affairs have attained
peace.
These things which have been established in a general way above, for a
few levels of experience and their formation, ought to be extended over the
whole realm of psychical reality, from the biological sub-structures of sex-
ual impulsive tendencies to the sublimest value tendencies of moral and re-
ligious forms of experience and attitude. A few words now concerning
the structural totality, the personality as the sum-total of sub-structures.
All subordinate structures are organically incorporated in the total struc-
ture of the personality; from them, as members relative to the whole,
FRIEDRICH SANDER 203
shines forth the lawfulness of the whole — omnibus in partibus relucet
totum. What has been demonstrated as law in one sub-structure applies
respectively to any other, and to the totality that supports them all. Fur-
thermore, as in experienced configurations the organic parts may be more or
less distinct, more or less contributor}"^ to the total, more or less intercon-
nected, so may be the parts of the transphenomenal structural totality.
From the point of view of the personality, the subordinate structures (to
remain on this one theme) have different degrees of importance in the total
pattern of the personality, some of them bear with more intense dynamic to-
ward actualization, determine the actual course of events more potently,
than others. The specific directions of the separate sub-structures almost
never chime together in an organic unity, though they are always borne
within a whole, but usually in a high-strung whole, in which now the
one, now the other, determines the actual process of experience, attitude
and action, though always in conformity to the immanent plan of the
whole. The general state of mind at any time, a sort of indicator for the
subordinate structures that happen to be dominant in the total pattern,
shows plainly, in the peculiar duality of contrary dynamic qualities, the
opposed tensions of separate structural tendencies. Naturally, the more
of the total personality is "contained" in an experience, the tenser is the
experienced contradictoriness of emotional life, and the more profoundly,
in the depth of such experiences, the subject will become directly aware of
his "essence," of the active psychical reality within him. If the balance of
structural parts, the transfinite form of the soul is temporarily or chroni-
cally disturbed by the fact that some sub-structure, say the sexual impulse,
gains dominion over the rest, and asserts itself at the expense of other
widely diffused structural ambitions, then the soul, the total structure, re-
acts to this disturbance of the pattern in an enduring fashion with a feeling
of "remorse," a typical structural feeling. Or the consequences which
ensue from the constant defeat of a sub-structure in process of its actual-
ization, be it through conflicting inner aims or through external hindrances,
may be typical general conditions of nervous excitement, fear and despair.
And again, when the sub-structures, creatively asserting themselves in har-
mony with the whole, and finding their redemption, articulate the total
structure step by step, there follows the volant sensation of profoundest
joy, in which all experience rounds itself into a complete whole and rests in
the living and active center, the soul.
REFERENCES
Cornelius, H. Psychologic als Erfahrungswissenschaft. Leipzig: Teubner,
1897.
JiNUMA, R. Die Grenzen der binokularen Verschmelzung in ihrer Abhangig-
keit von der Gestalthohe der Doppelbilder. (Sander, F. Beitrage zur
Psychologic dcs Stereoskopischen Sehens, I.) Arch. f. d. ges. Psychol., 1928,
65, 191-206.
KoFFKA, K. Psychologic. In Die Philosophic in ihren Einzelgebieten. (Ed.
by M. Dessoir.) Berlin, 1925.
KoHLER, W. Die physischen Gestalten in Ruhe und im stationarem Zustand.
Erlangen: Weltkreisvcrlag, 1920.
204 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
5. Krueger, F. Ueber den Strukturbegrifl in der Psychologic. Ber. u. d. Kong.
f. exper. Psychol., 1924, 8, 31-56.
6. . The essence of feelings: outline of a systematic theory. Chap.
5 in Feelings and emotions: the Wittenberg symposium. Worcester, Mass.:
Clark Univ. Press, 1928. Pp. 58-86.
7. Sander, F. Arbeitsbewegungen. In Arbeitskunde. (Ed. by H. Riedel.)
Leipzig: Teubner, 1924.
8. . Ueber raumliche Rhythmik. Neue Psychol. Stud., 1926, 1,
123-159.
Ueber Gestaltqualitaten. Ber. u d. Fill. Int. Kong. Psychol.,
Groningen, 1927.
10. . Experimentelle Ergebnisse der Gestaltpsychologie. Jena:
Fischer, 1928.
11. . Ueber Vorgestalten. Neue Psychol. Stud., 1930, 4.
12. Schneider, C. Ueber die Unterschiedsempfindlichkeit verschieden geglied-
erter optischer Gestalten. Neue Psychol. Stud., 1928, 4, 85-157.
13. VoLKELT, H. Neue Untersuchungen iiber die kindliche AuflFassung und
Wiedergabe von Formen. Ber. u. d. IF. Kong. Heilpdd., Leipzig, 1929.
14. WoHLFAHRT, E. Der Auflassungsvorgang an kleinsten Gestalten. Neue
Psychol. Stud., 1930, 4.
PART VI
RUSSIAN PSYCHOLOGIES
I
CHAPTER 11
A BRIEF OUTLINE OF THE HIGHER
NERVOUS ACTIVITY*
LP. Pavlov
State Institute of Experimental Medicine, Leningrad
At the present moment, on the basis of thirty years of experimentation
carried out by me together with my numerous co-workers, I feel fully
justified in asserting that the total external as well as internal activity of
a higher animal, such as a dog, can be studied with complete success
from a purely physiological angle, i.e., by the physiological method and in
terms of the physiology of the nervous system. The general factual
material given below must serve as a proof of this assertion.
The activity of the nervous system is directed, on the one hand, towards
unification, integrating the work of all the parts of the organism, and, on
the other, towards connecting the organism with the surrounding milieu,
towards an equilibrium between the system of the organism and the ex-
ternal conditions. The former part of nervous activity may be called
lower nervous activity in contradistinction to the latter part, which, be-
cause of its complexity and delicacy, may justly take the name of higher
nervous activity, which is usually called animal or human behavior.
The chief manifestation of higher animal behavior, i.e., its visible re-
action to the outside world, is motion — a result of its skeleto-muscular
activity accompanied to some extent by secretion due to the activity of
glandular tissues. The skeleto-muscular movement, beginning on the
lower level with the activity of separate muscles and of small groups of
muscles on the upper, reaches a higher integration in the form of loco-
motor acts, in the equilibration of a number of separate parts, or of the
whole organism in motion, with the force of gravity. Moreover, the
organism, in its surrounding milieu, with all its objects and influences,
performs special movements in accordance with the preservation of the
organism and of its species. These constitute reactions to food, defense,
sex, and other motor and, partly, secretory reactions. These special acts
of motion and secretion are performed, on the one hand, with a complete
synthesis of the internal activity of the organism, i.e., with a correspond-
ing activity of internal organs for the realization of a given external
motor activity; on the other hand, they are excited in a stereot5'^ped way
by definite and not numerous external and internal stimuli. We call these
acts unconditioned, special, complex reflexes. Others attribute to them
various names: instincts, tendencies, inclinations, etc. The stimuli of
these acts we shall call correspondingly unconditioned stimuli.
•Submitted in Russian and translated into English for the Clark University
Press by D. L. Zyve.
[207]
208 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
The anatomical substratum of these activities is to be found in the sub-
cortical centers, the basal ganglia nearest to the cerebral hemispheres.
These unconditioned, special reflexes constitute the most essential basis of
the external behavior of the animal. However, alone these responses of
the higher animal, w^ithout any additional activities, are not sufficient for
the preservation of the individual and the species. A dog with extirpated
cerebral hemispheres may manifest all these responses and yet, abandoned,
it unavoidably perishes in a very short time. In order that the individual
and the species be preserved, a supplementary apparatus must, of necessity,
be added to the basal ganglia — the cerebral hemispheres. This apparatus
makes a thorough analysis and synthesis of the external milieu, i.e., it
either difFerentiates or combines its separate elements in order to make of
them or their combinations numberless signals of basic and necessary con-
ditions of the external milieu, towards which is directed and set the activ-
ity of subcortical ganglia. In this manner the ganglia have the opportunity
to adjust, with fine precision, their activity to external conditions — finding
food where it may be found, avoiding danger with certainty, etc. More-
over, a further important detail to be considered is that these numberless
external agents, now isolated and now combined, are not permanent but
only temporary stimuli of subcortical ganglia, in accordance with the in-
cessant fluctuations of the environment, i.e., only when they signal cor-
rectly the fundamental and necessary conditions for the existence of the
animal, which conditions serve as unconditioned stimuli of these ganglia.
The detailed analysis and synthesis produced by the hemispheres, how-
ever, is not limited to the external world. The internal world of the
organism with its organic transformations is also subjected to similar analy-
sis and synthesis. To this analysis and synthesis are especially subjected —
and to a very high degree — phenomena taking place in the skeleto-muscu-
lar system, such as muscular tension of separate muscles and of their
numberless groupings. And some of these most delicate elements and
moments of the skeleto-muscular activity become stimuli in the same way
as do those coming from external receptors, i.e., they may temporarily be-
come connected with the activity of the skeleto-muscular sj'stem itself as
well as with any other activity of the organism. In this manner, by means
of special unconditioned reflexes, the skeleto-muscular activity realizes a
multiform and subtle adaptation to continually changing environmental
conditions. It is by means of such a mechanism that we realize our most
minute, acquired through practice, motions such as those of our hands,
for example. Here also belong movements of speech.
The cerebral hemispheres, due to their exceptional reactivity and flexi-
bility, make it possible for the strong, although naturally inert, subcorti-
cal centers, through a mechanism as yet not well known, to react by
appropriate responses to extremely weak fluctuations of the environment.
Consequently, in the higher nervous activity of the animal, in its be-
havior, three fundamental topics must be studied: (a) unconditioned com-
plex special reflexes, the activity of the basal ganglia, as a foundation for
I. p. PAVLOV 209
the external behavior of the organism; (b) the activity of the cortex; (c)
the method of connection and interaction of these ganglia and the cortex.
At the present moment, it is the second topic that is being studied by
us most thoroughly and in fullest detail. For this reason, the material
treated in this outline will be mostly related to it, and then we shall add
our first attempts at studying the third topic.
The greater part of unconditioned special complex reflexes is more or
less known (I am referring to the behavior of the dog). Among these
are, first, individual reflexes such as those related to food, pugnacity, ac-
tive and passive defense, freedom, investigation, and play; secondly, species
reflexes such as sex and parental reflexes. But are these all? Further-
more, we know little or nothing about the methods of their direct excita-
tion and inhibition, their relative strength and interaction. Obviously,
one of the important problems of the physiology of the higher nervous
activity is procuring higher animals (such as dogs) with extirpated hemi-
spheres, but with intact basal ganglia, in good health, and having a suffi-
ciently long span of life, to enable us to answer the above-stated prob-
lems. As for their connection with the hemispheres, all we know is that
it is a fact, but we do not satisfactorily visualize its mechanism. Let us
take the habitual special food reflex. It consists in a motion towards an
external object, serving as food for a given animal, in its introduction into
the opening of the digestive tract, and its moistening by digestive juices.
What the initial stimulus of this reflex is, we do not know definitely. All
that we know is that an animal (such as a dog) with extirpated cerebral
hemispheres, a few hours after it has been fed, emerges from its state of
drowsiness, begins to move and ramble about until it is fed again. Then
it falls asleep again. Obviously, here we are in the presence of motion
related to food, but entirely indefinite, not reaching any goal. Moreover,
there is a secretion of saliva while the animal is in motion. Nothing defi-
nite in the external world provokes either this food motion or this secre-
tion. It is an internal excitation.
With an animal with intact hemispheres, the matter presents itself very
difFerently. A mass of external stimuli may definitely provoke a food
reaction, and direct the animal to the food with precision. How does
this take place? Obviously, a mass of natural phenomena serve as food
signals, and this can be proved very easily. Let us take any natural phe-
nomenon that has never had any relation either to food motion or to food
secretion. If this phenomenon precedes the act of eating, once or several
times, it will later on provoke a food reaction; it will become, so to speak,
a surrogate for food — the animal moves toward it and may even take it
into its mouth, if the object is tangible. Therefore, when the subcortical
center of the food reflex is excited, all other stimuli reaching simultaneously
the finest receptors of the hemispheres seem to be directed toward that
center (whether directly or indirectly) and may become firmly connected
with it. Then takes place what we have called a conditioned reflex, i.e.,
the organism responds with a definite complex activity to an external ex-
citation to which it did not respond previously. This excitation originates,
210 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
no doubt, in the hemispheres, for the fact just described no longer occurs in
animals after they have been deprived of the cerebral hemispheres. What
more can be said about this fact? Since such a temporary connection, un-
der the same conditions, may be formed with every one of the special cen-
ters of the nearest subcortical ganglia, one must admit, as a general phe-
nomenon on the higher level of the central nervous system, that every
strongly excited center in some manner attracts towards itself every other
weaker excitation reaching the system simultaneously. In this manner, the
point of application of this excitation for a definite time under definite
conditions becomes more or less firmly connected with that center (the
rule of the closing of nervous paths — association). An essential detail of
this process is that a certain precedence in time on the part of the weaker
stimulus in regard to the stronger one is necessary for the formation of the
connection. If, while a dog is being fed, a neutral stimulus is added, there
is no formation of any measurable and secure conditioned food reflex.
The conditioned reflex may serve as an excellent object for the study
of the nature of individual cortical cells as well as of the processes taking
place in the whole cortical cellular mass, since the excitation of the cells
of the cortex of the cerebral hemispheres serves as an initial stimulus for
the conditioned reflex. This study made us acquainted with a considerable
number of rules concerning the activity of the cerebral hemispheres.
If in conditioned food reflexes we should start consistently from a food
stimulus of definite strength ( 1 8-22 hours after the usual satisfying feed-
ing), the fact of a definite relationship between the effect of the conditioned
stimulus and the physical strength of that stimulus becomes clear. The
stronger the conditioned stimulus, the greater the energy simultaneously
entering the hemispheres, the stronger is the effect of the conditioned re-
flex, other things being equal, i.e., the more energetic is the motor food re-
action and the more abundant the flow of saliva, which we consistently
utilize in measuring the effect. As one may judge from certain experi-
ments, this relationship between the effect and the intensity of the stimulus
must be quite definite (the rule of the relationship between the magnitude
of the eiifect and the strength of the stimulus). There is always, however,
a limit beyond which a stronger stimulus not only does not increase but
tends to decrease the effect.
The summation of conditioned reflexes may be also clearly observed.
Here again we reach a similar limit. In combining a number of weak
conditioned stimuli, one may often observe their exact arithmetical sum.
In combining a weak stimulus with a strong one, one observes a certain
increase in the resulting effect, within a certain limit; whereas in com-
bining two strong stimuli the effect, passing the limit, becomes less than
that of each of the components (the rule of the summation of conditioned
stimuli ) .
Besides the process of stimulation, the same external conditioned stimu-
lus may elicit in cortical cells an opposite process — a process of inhibition.
If a conditioned positive stimulus, i.e., producing a corresponding con-
ditioned reaction, is continued alone for a certain length of time (min-
I. p. PAVLOV 211
utes), without being accompanied any longer by an unconditioned stimu-
lus, then the cortical cell corresponding to this stimulus necessarily passes
into a state of inhibition. And this stimulus, as soon as it is systematically
applied alone, conditions in the cortex not a process of stimulation but a
process of inhibition ; it becomes a conditioned inhibitive negative stimulus
(the rule of transition of the cortical cells into a state of inhibition).
From this property of the cell are derived extremely important conse-
quences for the physiological role of the cortex. Thanks to it, a working
relationship is established between the conditioned and the correspond-
ing unconditioned stimuli, in which the former serve as a signal for
the latter. As soon as the conditioned stimulus is no longer accompanied
by an unconditional stimulus, i.e., signals incorrectly, it loses its stimu-
lating effect, although only temporarily, spontaneously reappearing
sometime later. Also, in other cases when the conditioned stimulus
is not accompanied by an unconditioned stimulus, either under con-
stant definite conditions or some considerable time after the begin-
ning of its action, such a stimulus proves to' be consistently inhibitive
in the former case, and in the latter case inhibitive during the first period
of the action of the conditioned stimulus. In this manner, due to the
developed inhibition, the conditioned stimulus as a signal conforms to the
minute conditions of its physiological role, without producing unnecessary
work. Moreover, on the basis of the developing inhibition, an important
process takes place in the cortex, resulting in a very minute analysis of
external excitations. At the beginning, every conditioned stimulus has
but a general character. If, for example, a conditioned stimulus is made
of a definite tone, several of the neighboring tones will elicit the same effect
without any preliminary training. This applies to any other conditioned
stimuli. However, if the original stimulus is consistently accompanied
by the corresponding unconditioned stimulus, whereas the stimuli related
to the original stimulus are repeated alone, then in the latter case a process
of inhibition takes place. They become inhibitive stimuli.
Thus, we may reach the limit of analysis of which a given animal may
be capable, i.e., most discrete natural phenomena may become special stim-
uli for a definite activity of the organism. We may think that by the
same process by which connections are formed between cortical cells and
subcortical centers connections are also formed between the cortical cells
themselves. The excitations produced by phenomena taking place simul-
taneously in the outside world are thus complex. These complex excita-
tions may become, under corresponding conditions, conditioned stimuli,
and be differentiated by means of the just-indicated process of inhibition
from other closely related complex stimuli.
The processes of excitation and inhibition, originated at definite points
of the cortex under the influence of corresponding stimuli, necessarily
spread through irradiation over a large or smaller area of the cortex, and
then again concentrate in a limited space (the rule of irradiation and con-
centration of nervous processes).
212 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
Above, we have just mentioned the initial generalization of every con-
ditioned stimulus — a result of irradiation of the excitations reaching the
hemispheres. The same thing takes place, at first, in the case of inhibi-
tory processes. When an inhibitory stimulus is applied and stopped, in-
hibition may be observed for some time in other and usually very distant
centers of the cortex. This irradiated inhibition, as well as excitation, be-
comes more and more concentrated, especially under the influence of jux-
taposition with an opposite process, i.e., the applied processes have a limit-
ing effect upon each other. There is even an indication of the existence in
the space between them of a neutral point.
In the case of a thoroughly worked-out inhibitory stimulus, one maj
notice in many dogs a strict concentration of inhibition at the point oJ
excitation, since, simultaneously with the inhibitory stimulus, the tried-
out positive stimuli produce a full, and often even a greater, effect, whereas
the irradiation of inhibition begins only after the inhibitory stimulus was
stopped.
Parallel with the phenomena of irradiation and concentration of ex-
citation and inhibition occur, interwoven with these, phenomena of mutual
induction of opposite processes, i.e., intensification of one process by another
taking place either in succession at the same point or simultaneously at
two neighboring points (the rule of mutual induction of nervous processes).
The matter, probably a temporary phase, appears very complicated. When
either a positive or an inhibitory stimulus (especially the latter) disturbs
a given equilibrium in the cortex, there seems to pass over it something
like a wave with a crest, the positive process, and with a trough, the in-
hibitory process, a wave that gradually flattens out, i.e., what takes place
is an irradiation of processes with the necessary participation of their
mutual induction.
Of course, it is not always possible to give an account of the phj'^siologi-
cal role of the just-described phenomena. For example, the initial irradia-
tion of every new conditioned stimulus, may be interrupted as though
every external agent which became a conditioned stimulus, in reality,
under the varying conditions of the environment, were subjected to fluctua-
tions not only with respect to its intensity but to its quality. Mutual
induction must lead towards the intensification and fixation of the physio-
logical significance of every single stimulus, whether positive or negative,
which indeed has been observed in our experiments. However, the spread-
ing of inhibition all over the hemisphere, lasting for a considerable length
of time, when it is produced by a definite agent at a definite point, still re-
mains incomprehensible. Is it due to a defect, or the inertia of the appa-
ratus, or is it a definite phenomenon, the biological meaning of which still
escapes us (which, of course, is quite possible) ?
As a result of the indicated work, the cortex presents a grandiose
mosaic, upon which are distributed, at a given moment, a huge number of
points of application of external excitations, either stimulating or inhibiting
the various activities of the organism. Since, however, these points are in
a definite mutual functional relationship, the cerebral hemispheres are at
the same time, every single moment, a system in a state of dynamic equi-
I. p. PAVLOV 213
librium, which one might call a stereotype. Fluctuations within the de-
termined limits of this system are a relatively easy matter. But the in-
clusion of new stimuli, especially all at once and in large numbers, or even
replacing a large number of old stimuli, represents a considerable nervous
process, a task which is beyond the strength of many nervous systems,
ending in the bankruptcy of the system, expressing itself in a refusal
for some time to accomplish normal work. However, every living work-
ing system, as well as its separate elements, must rest and recuperate.
Rest periods of such highly responsive elements as the cortical cells must
be especially taken care of. In the cortex, the regulation of work and
rest is realized to the highest degree. The work of every element is
regulated with respect to its intensity and its duration. We have seen
already how an excitation of the same cell, lasting only a few minutes,
leads towards the development in it of a process of inhibition, which de-
creases its work and finally stops it altogether. There is another, no less
striking case of preservation of the cell — the case of a strong external
stimulus. For every one of our animals (dogs) there is a maximum
stimulus, a limit of harmless functional strain, beyond which begins the
intervention of inhibition (the rule of the limit of intensity of excitation).
A stimulus, the intensity of which is beyond that maximum, instantly
elicits inhibition, thus distorting the usual rule of the relationship between
the magnitude of the effect and the intensity of excitation ; a strong stimu-
lus may produce an equal and even a smaller effect than a weak one
(the so-called equating and paradoxical phases).
Inhibition, as already stated, has a tendency to spread, unless it meets
with a counteraction in the condition of a given environment. It ex-
presses itself in phenomena of either partial or total sleep. Partial sleep
is, obviously, what is being called hypnosis. We were enabled to study
upon dogs the various degrees of extensiveness as well as of intensiveness
of hypnosis, which ultimately passed into complete sleep, when stimulating
influences were insufficient.
The delicate apparatus of the cerebral hemispheres was found, as one
might expect, very different in various specimens of the same species (our
dogs). We had good reasons to distinguish four different types of cere-
bral hemispheres : two extreme ones, the excitable and the inhibitable ; and
two central, balanced ones, the calm and the lively. In the former two,
one is dominated by the process of excitation, and the other by the process
of inhibition. In the latter two, the two processes are more or less bal-
anced. Moreover, we are considering here the amount and the intensity
of work which can be furnished by the cells. The cells of the excitable
type are very strong and capable of developing, without too much labor,
conditioned reflexes to very strong stimuli. For the inhibitable type, this is
impossible. The central types probably (this still remains to be estab-
lished) are endowed with cells of moderate strength. One must think
that this difference determines that an excitable type is not endowed with
a correspondingly sufficient inhibitory process, whereas the inhibitable type
lacks in sufficient stimulating processes. In the central types, both processes
are almost equally strong.
214 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
Such is the work of the large hemispheres in a normal healthy condi-
tion. However, its work being of extreme delicacy, it may very easily
pass into a morbid, pathological state, especially in cases of extreme un-
balanced types. The conditions for the transition into a morbid state
are sufficiently definite. Two of these are perfectly well known. These
are : very strong external stimuli and the collision of the excitatory and
inhibitory processes.
Strong stimuli are especially apt to become harmful agents for a weak
inhibitable type, which under their influence, passes into a state of com-
plete inhibition. The collision of opposite processes, on the other hand,
results in all sorts of disorders in both the strong and weak types. The
former loses altogether the ability of inhibition, whereas in the latter the
excitatory process is considerably weakened.
Among the pathological phenomena an especially interesting one is that
the disorder may be limited to a single, very small spot of the cerebral
hemispheres, which undoubtedly proves its mosaic structure. Recently,
it was possible, to a certain degree, to reproduce in the laboratory the
analogue of the usual war neurosis, when the patient with corresponding
cries and movements lives through terrible war scenes while falling asleep
or in a state of hypnosis.
After we have become acquainted with the activity of the cortex of
the cerebral hemispheres, let us turn to the subcortical centers in order
to make a fuller estimate of what they receive from the cortex and in
order to see of what significance they are, in turn, to the cortex.
Subcortical centers are inert to the highest degree. It is a well-known
fact that a dog with extirpated hemispheres does not respond to a very
large number of stimuli from the external world to which a normal animal
reacts consistently and quickly. This refers to both the quality and the
intensity of external stimuli. In other words, both the external and in-
ternal world are extremely limited for dogs with extirpated cerebral
hemispheres. Similarly, subcortical centers are deprived of their reactive
and movable inhibitions. Whereas, during the activity of the hemispheres,
inhibition arises frequently and quickly, the subcortical centers, being very
strong and resistant, are very little inclined towards it. Here are a few
examples. The investigation reflex to stimuli, of either weak or medium
intensity, in the case of a normal dog disappears through inhibition
after three to five repetitions, and sometimes sooner. With dogs with
extirpated hemispheres, there is no end to it when sufficiently strong stim-
uli are repeated. In the case of a hungry dog, the conditioned food re-
flex, originating in the hemispheres, is usually extinguished in a few min-
utes, even to the extent of refusing food ; with an equally hungry dog,
the unconditioned food reflex (eating after the dog has had its oesophagus
isolated from the stomach, i.e., when food does not reach the stomach)
continues from three to five hours and stops because of the probable ex-
haustion of the masticating and swallowing muscles. The same applies
to the reflex to freedom, i.e., to the fighting reaction when the movements
of the animals are hampered. Whereas a normal dog can easily and almost
I. p. PAVLOV 215
consistently inhibit such a reflex, with a dog with extirpated hemispheres
such inhibition cannot be achieved. The latter, while taken out from its
cage for feeding, manifested daily for months and even years a furious
aggressive reaction.
Cerebral hemispheres, in some manner, overcome the described inertia
of the subcortical centers with respect both to excitation and inhibition, since
in a large number of cases the hemispheres must stimulate the organism
to activity or to stop one or another of its activities through the inter-
mediary of subcortical centers. In what manner do weak external and
internal stimuli, insufficient for the direct excitation of these centers, excite
them through the intermediary of the hemispheres? To this, physiology
gives no definite answer. Perhaps a summation of a new excitation vdth
the traces of an old one takes place in the cerebral hemispheres, an accumu-
lation of excitations; perhaps a certain role is also played by the usual
irradiation of the excitation over the cortical tissue, etc. No clearer is the
rapid inhibition of the subcortical centers by the hemispheres when the
latter are weakly stimulated. Of course, the simplest case is when the hemi-
spheres gradually accumulate inhibitions, which become strong enough to
overcome the direct strong excitation of the subcortical centers. Indeed,
we saw in our experiments more than once that long applied and in-
tensive inhibition in the hemispheres may strongly hold back the effect
of the unconditioned stimulus. Thus, food which is already in the mouth
may not provoke salivation for a long while ; thus, also, was it frequently
observed that chronic excitation of the cortex, following an operation,
totally inhibits the activity of the subcortical centers for a considerable
period of time: the animals become entirely blind and deaf, whereas
animals totally deprived of the hemispheres react, although in a limited
way, to a strong luminous stimulus and especially distinctly to a sound
stimulus. One may also easily imagine that the cerebral hemispheres ex-
cited to a certain tonus throughout its whole mass, under the influence of
a number of excitations reaching them, exert an inhibiting action upon the
subcortical centers, according to the rule of negative induction, and thus
lighten for themselves every special additional inhibition of these cen-
ters. In. this manner, the cerebral hemispheres not only analyze and syn-
thesize very subtly the external and the internal world of the animal, for
the benefit, so to speak, of the subcortical centers, but continually correct
their inertia. Only then does the activity of the subcortical centers, so
important for the organism, find itself in the right relationship to the en-
vironment of the animal.
However, the reciprocal influence of subcortical centers upon the hemi-
spheres is no less essential. The active state of the hemispheres is being
continually maintained by excitations coming from subcortical centers.
This point is now being thoroughly studied in laboratories under my
direction, and especial significance ought to be attributed to experiments,
which are being carried out by Dr. V. V. Rikman, which I shall now de-
scribe in detail.
If we start from the habitual sufficient feeding of the dog, during which
216 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
the rule of the relationship between the magnitude of the effect and the
intensity of excitation manifests itself, and if we increase the animal's
excitability to food, either by decreasing the daily ration or by lengthening
the interval between the last feeding and the beginning of the experiment,
or merely by making the food more tasty, we shall surely observe very
interesting modifications in the magnitude of the conditioned reflexes. The
rule of the relationship of the magnitude of the effect and the intensity of
excitation becomes abruptly changed ; now both strong and weak stimuli
are comparable in their effects, or, which happens even more often, strong
stimuli produce a smaller effect than the weak ones (the equating and
paradoxical phases), the strong stimuli decreasing and the weak ones in-
creasing their effects (equating and paradoxical phases on a high level).
Excitable dogs with strong cortical cells show an increase in their re-
sponse to strong stimuli under indicated conditions, but the increase of the
response to weak stimuli is considerably greater so that, eventually, we
reach both the equating (more often) and paradoxical phases.
Let us now take a reverse case. Let us decrease the excitability to food.
In general, the result appears to be the same, i.e., the same equating and
paradoxical phases; the effect of strong stimuli again becomes equal to
that of the weak ones or even becomes smaller. There appears, however,
an essential difference. This time, the effect of weak stimuli either re-
mains unchanged or decreases towards the end of the experiment after
the application of strong stimuli (equating and paradoxical phases on the
low level). The results reached are such that the dog under strong stimu-
lation refuses to take food, and takes it only under a weak stimulus. More-
over, with excitable dogs, a state of restlessness may be observed ; the dog
whines, moves to and fro in the stand. This state, on the whole, re-
sembles the approach of an hypnotic state (a struggle between excitation
and inhibition).
How are we to understand the described facts? Since in both cases
inhibition gets hold of the strong stimuli and since the aroused inhibition
irradiates and may for the second time influence weak stimuli — which
could be observed in the experiments, especially with a lowered excitability
to food — it was decided to carry out the same experiments with the ex
elusion of strong stimuli. A strict rule was thus manifested : the effect
of weak stimuli runs parallel with the increase or decrease of the excita-
bility to food, i.e., increases with the increase of that excitability and drops
with its decrease. In this manner, the whole phenomenon was simply
explained as the spreading of that excitability from the subcortical mass
to the cortex.
But what happens when we use strong stimuli? Let us begin with the
first case. When the excitability to food is increased, the effect of strong
stimuli is either slightly increased, as compared with the increase in the
effect produced by the weak stimuli, or, which happens more often, is de-
creased, while this decrease becomes very abrupt through repeated applica-
tion of these stimuli during the experiment. It becomes quite clear that
with the increase of the excitability of the cortical cells — which is indi-
I. p. PAVLOV 217
cated by the increase of the effect due to weak stimuli — the formerly
strong stimuli become maximal, if they were not already such, whereas the
formerly maximal stimuli become super-maximal. An inhibition de-
velops then against the latter, which become dangerous in the sense of a
functional overstrain of the cell, according to the rule of the limit of the
intensity of excitation. This is exactly similar to what happens in ordi-
nary experiments when excessively strong stimuli do not give a greater
but a smaller effect in comparison with strong stimuli, which are below
the limit of . intensity. What in the latter case becomes an absolute in-
tensity of the stimuli, takes place in the former case at the expense of an
increase of instability (lability) of the cell. That all this is interpreted
correctly may be proved also by the fact that, with a further increase of
excitability to food, the formerly weak stimuli reach a limit, become super-
maximal, and then provoke an inhibition.
Yet how are we to understand the case of inhibition of strong stimuli
when the excitability to food is lowered? Where from and why does
inhibition now arise? Obviously, we are dealing here with a more com-
plicated fact. Yet, it seems to me, it can be satisfactorily understood
if we connect it with the following well-known facts.
However variegated is life, in general, yet every one of us, as well as
the animal, must have a large number of stimuli which are always the same,
i.e., those which fall always upon the same elements of the cortex. These
elements then, sooner or later, must reach a state of inhibition, overtaking
the mass of the hemispheres and leading to a state of hypnosis and sleep.
We see this constantly in our own life as well as in our experiments with
dogs, especially when they are isolated from a variety of stimuli. For this
reason, we often have to struggle with a handicap coming from a develop-
ing hypnosis. The chief counteraction to this hypnotization comes, of
course, from imconditioned stimuli applied by us in our experiments,
mostly from periodical partial feeding. Therefore, by decreasing the ex-
citability to food, we give the upper hand to hypnotizing excitations and
should obtain a state of hypnosis, which actually takes place, as was shown
above.
This is not all. We must still explain why, during the hypnosis, the
strong stimuli are among the first to be subjected to inhibition, and why
the equating and paradoxical phases take place. In this case, we may take
advantage of the following observations, in which the mechanism of the
phenomena is more or less clear. In our experiments, we became ac-
quainted long ago with the fact that at the beginning of hypnosis there is
a divergence between the secretory and. the motor components of the food
reflex. Under the artificial conditioned stimulus as well as under a natural
excitation (seeing and smelling food), the saliva runs freely, yet the dog
does not touch the food, i.e., the inhibition developing in the hemispheres
somehow gets hold first of all of the motor area. Why? We thought,
because this part of the hemispheres worked most during the experiments,
since the dog had to maintain a state of complete wakefulness. This
supposition received earnest support from further observations. At the
218 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
very first sign of hypnotization, the dog under a conditioned stimulus
turns in the direction of the food. When the food container is offered, the
dog follows it by movements of its head when the container is raised or
lowered or moved from side to side, but it cannot take any food and merely
opens the mouth a little, whereas the tongue very often hangs motionless
from the mouth as though it were paralyzed. And only after continued
excitation through the offered food do the movements of the mouth be-
come broader, and eventually the animal takes some food into its mouth,
but even then the chewing act is interrupted by comical halts of a few
seconds, until finally begins an energetic, greedy act of eating. (Dr. M.
C. Petrova).
When hypnotization is further developed, the animal merely follows
the food by moving its head, but does not even open its mouth. A little
later, it merely turns with its whole body in the direction of the food, and
finally there is no other motor reaction whatsoever.
There is an obvious sequence in the inhibition of various parts of the
motor area of the cortex, according to their work in these experiments.
During the experiment with food reflexes, most work is being done by
the masticating muscles and the tongue, then by the muscles of the neck,
and finally by the body. It is in this order that they are overtaken by the
inhibitory process. Therefore, the part that worked most is first subjected
to the effect of the spreading inhibition. There is a complete coincidence
in that the exhaustion in a cortical cell consistently leads to the appearance
in it of an inhibitory process. Thus, inhibition, irradiating from cells con-
tinually excited by the conditions of the experiment, is summated with the
inhibitions proper of the working cell, and here it reaches its maximal
intensity.
Such an interpretation of phenomena may be rightfully carried over to
the case, analyzed by us, of the decrease in the excitability to food. The
hypnotizing effect of the environment, which acquires a greater weight
when the excitability to food is lowered, naturally is felt first in the cells
of the conditioned excitors, which worked most energetically under the
influence of stronger stimuli.
Therefore, subcortical centers, in a greater or less measure, determine
the active state of the hemispheres and so change, in a multiform manner,
the relation of the organism to the external world.
There are also some of our experiments (the most recent one being
somewhat artificial in form, it is true) which corroborate the important
significance of subcortical centers in the activity of the cortex.
Given below are Dr. D. I. Soloveychik's experiments on the influence
of the ligation of the seminal duct and the grafting of a small piece of a
seminal gland from a young animal (this was done simultaneously) upon
conditioned-reflex behavior.
The experiments were first performed upon a dog known for a long
time (five to six years) to have a very weak cortical tissue. After the
collision of the excitatory with the inhibitory process, the dog showed symp-
toms of neurosis, which lasted five weeks. At first, all the conditioned re-
I. p. PAVLOV 219
flexes disappeared ; then they gradually reappeared, but showed a dis-
torted relationship between the intensity of excitation and the correspond-
ing effect; and only gradually, through a series of phases, was the normal
activity of the cortex re-established. Later on, the conditioned-reflex
behavior of this dog became considerably weaker. The effects of the con-
ditioned stimuli became smaller and smaller. It became necessary to in-
crease by various methods the excitability to food. The formerly strong-
est stimulus now took the last rank from the point of view of its effective-
ness. All stimuli sharply declined in effect after a single repetition. A
change in the habitual order of conditioned stimuli was followed by the dis-
appearance of all conditioned reflexes for several days.
Two or three weeks after the operation, the situation was radically
changed. All the reflexes increased considerably in magnitude. The nor-
mal relationship between the intensity of the stimulus and that of the re-
sponse was re-established. Through repetition, the reflex no longer de-
creased, nor did a change in the order of stimuli have any negative effect.
Even a collision of the excitatory and the inhibitory processes, repeated
more than once, remained now without the slightest effect upon the activity
of the cortex.
This condition of the dog lasted for two or three months, and then it
rapidly returned to the state in which it was before the operation. A simi-
lar operation performed upon the second seminal gland of the same dog
was accompanied by a similar result. The same phenomena occurred also
with another dog.
Thus, the processes which took place in the seminal gland, both ner-
vous and chemical, manifested themselves very vividly in the activity of
the cortex. However, to such questions as: in what manner? directly or
by the intermediary of subcortical centers? by a nervous path or a chemi-
cal method, or by a method of summation? — no precise answer can be
given until further analysis. Of course, similar questions, relating to the
effect upon the cortex of the excitability to food, are as legitimate. How-
ever, taking into consideration the effect of both external and internal
unconditioned stimuli of subcortical centers, obviously directed towards
them, and judging from the considerable duration of their action (which
would be impossible for cortical cells) and also turning our attention to
the extraordinary intensity of the activity of these centers after the con-
trol over them by the hemispheres had been lowered, or eliminated, we may
consider that very probably the above-described modifications in the activ-
ity of the cortex are secondary, for the greater part, at least, and not pri-
mary, i.e., they take place under the influence of modifications in the excita-
bility of the subcortical centers.
Finally, I shall also describe Dr. G. P. Conradi's experiments, which
are related to the same question. By the use of three tones of the same
musical instrument, three conditioned reflexes were formed in a dog re-
acting to three unconditioned stimuli: to acid with the low tone, to food
with the medium tone, and to a strong electric current, applied to the
skin of the shin, with the high tone. When these were fully established.
220 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
the following interesting phenomena could be observed. First, with the
low and medium tones a defensive reaction could be observed at the
beginning of their action, and only after continuation of the excitation
did it change into either the acid or the food reflex. Secondly, intermediate
tones, which were also tried, were found to be related mostly to a de-
fensive reaction. The regions of generalized "acid" and "food" tones
were very limited. The whole diapason of tones, both beyond the limits
of our extreme tones and in the interval between the low and medium
tones, provoked a defensive reaction. Since the relative physical strength
of conditionally acting tones could not determine such differences between
them, these must be attributed to differences of intensity in the excitation
of the subcortical centers.
In conclusion, it may be said that our experiments, as related above, are,
of course, only the first tentative experimental approach of one of the most
important physiological questions of the interaction of the cortex and the
nearest subcortical centers.
CHAPTER 12
BEKHTEREV'S REFLEXOLOGICAL SCHOOL
Alexander L. Schniermann
Bekhterev's Reflexological State Institute for Brain Researches,
Leningrad
I. Introduction
At the very outset of my task — the exposition of Bekhterev's teaching
and of the vrorks of his school — I am confronted with many difficulties.
The first of these is due to the fact that this teaching is the result of about
fifty years of work of a scientist of exceptional fecundity and wide concep-
tion. Bekhterev has written not less than six hundred scientific works in
the fields of anatomy and physiology of the nervous system, psychology,
pedology, pedagogy, psychotechnics, defectology, neuropathology, psycho-
pathology, and clinical neuropsychiatry. Furthermore you will see that
Bekhterev's reflexology was an attempt to generalize his colossal experi-
ence. Its significance lies not only in its being a new method of research
but also in its presenting a very broad synthesis of all Bekhterev's knowl-
edge of human personality and of its correlation with nature and society,
Bekhterev's reflexology being almost a world-conception.
The other difficulty in expounding Bekhterev's teaching is caused by its
extremely dynamic nature. Like all great scientists, Bekhterev could
never stop at a once accepted principle; he was always aspiring to new
ways, always moving forward. From the old speculative psychology to
experimental psychology, from experimental psychology to objective psy-
chology, and from the latter to reflexology — such was his way. Yet even
reflexology could not remain at a standstill, permanently standardized,
being subjected to an evolutionary process both during Bekhterev's life
and after his death.
These facts induce me to pay special attention to the history of reflex-
ology and to the perspectives of its further development. Bearing this in
mind, I begin my paper with a brief historical review of the development
of reflexology. This being done, I shall pass on to the exposition of the
fundamental features of Bekhterev's teaching and of the present state of
reflexology. I shall conclude this article by giving an account of the
relation existing between reflexology and other tendencies of behavior
teaching.
II. Brief History of Reflexology
V. M. Bekhterev began his scientific work in the last quarter of the past
century when all the work in the field of psychoneurology, which is divided
nowadays into a series of separate branches, was confined to the clinics of
[221]
222 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
mental and nervous diseases.^ It is interesting to note that Bekhterev's
early works dealt mostly with the problems of the anatomy and physiology
of the nervous system. Being Flexig's pupil, he published a great number
of works concerning the structure and conduction paths of the brain, etc.
As a result of these researches there appeared in 1888, the first edition of
Conduction Paths of the Brain and Spinal Cord (4). This book passed
through many editions, was extended to two volumes, and became a
manual for neuropathologists and psychiatrists. Bekhterev centered his
investigations on the study of the structure of the brain and of its functions.
In 1883, in a work of his, Bekhterev revealed for the first time the func-
tions of the thalamus opticus (2). Later on, there followed a series of other
researches, among which, of first interest, was a work concerning the
physiology of the cerebral cortex motor sphere (3). This work proved
that an extirpation of the cerebral cortex in dogs causes the disappearance
of trained movements (giving of paw), whereas the innate movements
remain intact. From Bekhterev's numerous physiological investigations,
which I am unable to cite here, there resulted a voluminous book in seven
parts. Bases of the Teaching Concerning the Functions of the Brain (8).
All these strictly objective investigations formed the basis upon which
Bekhterev tried to build up his clinical work. Moreover, he searched for
these objective methods even in the actual clinical work itself, which work
at those times was performed mostly by means of subjective methods.
Space does not allow me to discuss here the important role that Bekhter-
ev played in the history of psychoneurology in Russia. I shall mention
only some aspects of his activity which I consider as very important for the
development of reflexology.
Beginning with 1897 a series of works appeared in which were stated,
for the first time, the objective indexes of neuroses, hysteria (6, 7),
hypnotic states, suggestion in hypnosis, etc. (31). This objective tendency
could not but have its influence upon Bekhterev's psychological conception.
Indeed, we find in him one of the pioneers of experimental psychology in
Russia. Yet, later, Bekhterev outgrew even experimental psychology,
which he thought was not objective enough. His inclination to submit
psychical processes to an objective account made it quite indispensable to
discover the materialistic bases of these processes. This obliged Bekhterev
to oppose the then prevailing idealism in psychology and philosophy.
However, the old naive mechanical materialism could not, of course, meet
his claims, and therefore he opposed both tendencies by his energy principle.
In 1896 he expounded, for the first time, his teaching concerning the
provoking of nervous conductivity by the detention of nervous energy and
concerning the receptor organs, which he declares are transformers of the
outer energies (8). This standpoint concerning energy reached its full
development in his classical work, Psychic Activity and Life (10). The
psychical processes are viewed here as the result of an accumulation of
the nervous-current energy in the cerebral cortex.
^The division of the two clinics took place at the St. Petersburg Military Medical
Academy after the beginning of the twentieth century.
ALEXANDER L. SCHNIERMANN 223
In 1904 Bekhterev already had in mind the plan of an Objective Psy-
chology (9) which was to be substituted for the old subjective one, the
subject of this new science consisting of all the objective correlations exist-
ing between personality and the inorganic, the organic, as well as the
social environment. Later on, this sum of correlations was characterized
by Bekhterev's term, correlated activity. Yet the organization of this
new science required not only fundamental statements but also new methods
of investigation. As seen above, Bekhterev searched for these objective
methods both in his experimental and clinical work. Certainly in studying
the already formed reactions, he could make use of the methods of experi-
mental psychology, adopting the objective results and excluding all subject-
ive interpretation. But it was also necessary to find a method of studying
human reactions in the very process of their formation {in statu nascendi) .
In 1905 Boldyrev's report appeared (from Pavlov's physiological school)
on the method of training the "conditioned" ( "psj^chical" ) salivary reflexes
in dogs (35). Yet this method, necessitating operation, was unadaptable
to individuals.^ There are numerous other reasons, of which I will speak
later, why this method could not satisfy Bekhterev. In 1907 Bekhterev
reported his experiments performed in collaboration with Spirtov, which
experiments aimed at forming in dogs an "artificially associated respiratory
motor reflex" (11). Somewhat later Anfimov formed the same reflex in
persons (13).
In 1908 Protopopov worked out in dogs the artificially associated motor
reflex on the basis of the defensive paw movement provoked by electrical
stimulation of the skin (49), and in 1910 Molotkov obtained, by means of
the same method, in individuals the associated motor reflex of the sole (41).
This method appeared to Bekhterev more advantageous than Pavlov's
method of the salivary conditioned reflex. Besides the impossibility of
extending Pavlov's method to people,^ it also could not answer the
purpose of a diverse study of human correlated activity, as it dealt only
with those functions which were not submitted to the so-called "active
effectiveness" of the personality. It must be realized that Bekhterev was
interested in the study not only of purely physiological laws but also of all
reactions forming human correlated activity. From that standpoint the
motor sphere promised richer material than the sphere of secretion. Thus
the method of associated motor reflexes became one of the fundamental
methods of investigation in Bekhterev's school, whereas the method of
conditioned secretory reflexes remains the principal method of Pavlov's.
The term associated reflex was adopted by Bekhterev's school instead of
Pavlov's conditioned reflex as determining in a more precise way those
conditions under which this reflex is formed (the association of two stimu-
lations).
'^Krasnogorski tried to study the conditioned food reflex in children by recording
the movements of the epiglottis (1907), but the recording of the salivation did not
then prove feasible.
*Only after the invention of Lashley's funnel did experiments on people prove
possible. And they were performed for the first time by Watson in the United
States and some years later in Russia by Krasnogorski and Yushchenko.
224 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
The subject and method of objective psychology (17) being deter-
mined, Bekhterev initiated its organization and from 1907-10 published
two large volumes of his new teaching (12). As an objective biosocial
teaching of correlated activity, Objective Psychology already contained the
chief features of reflexology. The term reflexology appeared for the first
time in 1912 (22).
Bekhterev's objective biosociological principle expounded in Objective
Psychology left its mark upon all the work of his school at this period.
Then also those researches were commenced which brought in the genetic
method, this method becoming later one of the most characteristic and
indefeasible parts of Bekhterev's reflexology. I mention here the first
observations on the development of the neuropsychic activity of infants,
performed at the Pedological Institute founded by Bekhterev in St. Peters-
burg (16-19). With these observations, a systematic study of the on-
togenesis of correlated activity began. At the same time Bekhterev man-
ifested a great interest in the phylogenesis of behavior. In this way that
side of Bekhterev's teaching developed which later was transformed into
Genetic Reflexology (32).
On the other hand, a great many sociological problems confronted Bekh-
terev, and we see him performing a series of investigations in the fields of
social education (20), social psychology (21), etc. These investigations
formed the basis of the future Collective Reflexology (25).
This objective biosociological tendency could not but have its influence
upon Bekhterev's clinical work. In 1910 he introduced his method of
the associated motor reflex into clinical psychiatry (18). Furthermore, in
1912 he put the problems of psychiatry, in the field of the prophylaxis of
mental diseases, into direct connection with social problems (23). During
the last fifteen or twenty years of his life, Bekhterev worked on the creation
of Pathological Reflexology (26), which, unfortunately, remained unfin-
ished.
In 1918 the first edition of General Bases of Human Reflexology (24)
appeared — the result of many years of Bekhterev's work and also the plan
of work for more than one generation. We find here a definitive presen-
tation of the conception of human personality as a product of the biological
and social environment and we also see that quite a distinct line is drawn
between psychology, of all tendencies and schools,^ and reflexology, the
only strictly objective scientific discipline which studies human personality
in its outer manifestations in objective correlations with its environment.
During Bekhterev's life, General Bases of Human Reflexology passed
through three editions, each new edition increasing in size and experimental
material, which proves the extent of the work of Bekhterev's school. The
accumulated empirical material found its precise place in the system of
reflexology, at the same time developing, altering, and improving the system
itself.
^Including even those psychologists calling themselves "obj activists," who utilize
objective methods but who deal with "consciousness" and other subjective phe-
nomena.
ALEXANDER L. SCHNIERMANN 225
During the last years of his life, Bekhterev revised, many times, his
teaching in connection with other scientific tendencies, explaining and
defining these correlations. In a short brochure. Psychology, Reflexology,
and Marxism (27) published in 1925, Bekhterev revealed very successfully
the crisis of present-day psychology and its insolvency in dealing with
behavior problems. And here also he elucidated and defined the philoso-
phic premises of his teaching, especially his energy standpoint expounded
in 1904. Even then, at the basis of all nervous phenomena as well as of
all world-phenomena, Bekhterev put the process of a constant transforma-
tion of energy; confirming it later, he stated the materialistic character of
the process (in the philosophic but not the physical sense of the word).
He considered it expedient to strengthen the ties between reflexology and
dialectic materialism; it seems that, in the latter, Bekhterev found a satis-
factory world-conception, which afForded him a solid materialistic basis,
without the necessity to adopt the simplified schematization of the mechan-
ists. Bekhterev believed reflexology to be in no contradiction with dialectic
materialism; furthermore, he thought that only reflexology as a strictly
objective teaching of human personality, under the standpoint of psycho-
physical monism, can answer to the claims of the dialectic method. The
union of Marxism with reflexology (not with social psychology) promises
to reveal the laws of social phenomena, in the sense of the genetic develop-
ment of the new powers of production, of the new forms of labor and
industrial relations, etc. Bekhterev, perceiving the sociological side of
reflexology, also acknowledged its biological significance, due to the phylo-
genesis of human personality ; and in connection with dialectic materialism,
he understood reflexology as a biosociological discipline, of quite an inde-
pendent significance. "Reflexology," said Bekhterev, "stands with one foot
on biology and with the other on sociology, and must therefore be an inde-
pendent scientific discipline, establishing the ties between biological and
sociological knowledge, but not to be confounded with either of them."
III. Principal Statements of Bekhterev's Teaching
General Bases of Human Reflexology is a book of a somewhat unfamiliar
structure. On one hand, it offers rather rich empiric material gathered
together during several decades of work ; on the other hand, much attention
is paid here to theoretical statements, to the elucidation of the subjects and
methods of the teaching, and to the setting forth of its biological principles,
etc. As you will see below, the empiric material is also presented in a
most unusual form. In fact, a reader inexperienced in reflexological his-
tory might receive the impression of heavy accumulation and of dispro-
portion. Sometimes it is even difficult to decide whether the theoretical
part proves to be too voluminous or whether there is too much empiric
material which should form only the basis of the theoretical part of the
new discipline.
Nevertheless, I hope that if you know the history of reflexology the
unfamiliarity of this form will not perplex you. You see here the develop-
ment of a new teaching which is, as yet, not quite accomplished. This
226 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
teaching was founded on rich empiric material, though partly acquired
by means of old methods. In this book the author aspires to formulate
the methodological settlement of the new discipline and, at the same time,
to place it into its relationship with all the rich empiric data, correlating
the whole with the facts of physics, chemistry, and biology. If you will
take into consideration the colossal erudition of the author, which could
not, of course, but have its influence on his arguments, I suppose, this
book will not give the impression either of heavy accumulation or of dis-
proportion.
The size and the concentration of the contents of General Bases of
Reflexology compel me to give up the attempt of presenting it in a more or
less exhaustive way. I shall reduce my task to a general elucidation of the
biological premises of reflexology, to the determination of the contents of
correlated activity, to the formulation of the problems and methods of
reflexology, and also to the shortest possible summary of the empiric
material.
A
In order to penetrate into the meaning of Bekhterev's teaching, it is neces-
sary, first of all, to realize that this teaching is based upon a strictly objec-
tive biological scientific conception.
"Put yourself," says Bekhterev, "in the place of a creature from another
world, of another nature, which came, for example, from another planet.
This creature arrived on the earth and is supposed to meet with people;
it begins to study these beings, which produce incomprehensible sounds.
Now I should ask you: what must be the method this creature has to use
when observing human life in all its complicated manifestations? This
creature of another planet, of a different nature, ignoring human language,
has it to use the method of a subjective analysis when studying the various
forms of human activity and of the stimuli which provoke it, attributing
therewith to persons unnatural emotions, emotions of another planet, or has
it to study human life and its various manifestations in a strictly objective
way, trying to reveal the diverse correlations existing between persons and
the environing world, as we do ourselves when studying the life of microbes
and other protozoa?
"I think there can be no hesitation in the answer. It is quite evident
that a creature of a superior nature can study all manifestations of human
personality only from a strictly objective standpoint, never applying a
subjective analysis of the supposed inner emotions and never presenting
any interpretations by analogy with himself, as, of course, such an analogy
cannot exist.
"This is the way we must study the various activity of persons, i.e., their
actions, speech, mimicry, gestures, and the so-called instinctive or (to be
more exact) the hereditary organic manifestations. Our standpoint must
be a strictly objective one, and, being connected with the outward and
inward influences, free from any subjective analysis and analogy with
ourselves. At the same time we must, of course, follow the line of the
naturalistic scientific study of the object in its social environment, elucidat-
ALEXANDER L. SCHNIERMANN 227
ing the correlations existing between actions of behavior as well as other
manifestations of human individuals and the outer stimuli which provoke
them; this we must do as for the present so for the past, in order to find
the laws to which these manifestations are submitted and to determine
the correlations arising between persons and the physical, biological, and,
especially, the social environment."
As a biological scientific teaching, reflexology aspires to discover the
genesis of the fundamental properties of human correlated activity, issuing
from the general properties of living matter. Hence a series of chapters of
General Bases of Reflexology are allotted to the teaching of the origin and
evolution of correlated activity in the phylogenetic scale.
The principal property of living matter is its capacity for reproductive
activity. Under the latter, Bekhterev understands the capacity of living
matter to reproduce those changes which occur in it under the influence of
outer conditions, these reproductions being made possible by the presence
of even a slight stimulus of the same nature. It seems as if, under the
influence of reflexes, there occur some fine modifications within the minute
structure of living matter, as if there appear some traced paths — paths of
the least resistance. Thus the experience of the past does not remain
traceless. The reflex is a creative factor of individuality. The capacity
of reproductive activity lies in the very nature of living matter and may be
observed even in organisms which have no nervous system. With the
appearance of the latter, only the improvement of the correlations of the
organism with the environment takes place, and at the same time it becomes
possible to perform coordinated reactions in diverse parts of the body in
response to outer stimuli. The uniqueness of the body reactions is a direct
consequence of the reproductive activity of the living organism ; every
reaction alters the physiological state of the organism, and therefore the
following reaction in answer to the same stimulus can be altered. Every
reaction is the resultant of two factors, one being the specific stimulus of
the environment, and the other, the inner conditions which consist of the
sum of the characteristics of the given individual ; these characteristics are
due not only to hereditary laws but also to the whole of the precedent
experience. Thus the individual experience appears as a factor of the
individual evolution.
Yet, what are the principal actions of the individuals subjected to evolu-
tion in the process of phylogenesis? Such are the actions of attack and
defense.^ We observe these actions of defense and attack even in protozoa
in the form of extension or contraction of their cellular surface. With
plants these acts are manifested mostly in their morphogenesis and in some
cases in direct motor reactions of attack {Drosera rotundifolia) or defense
{Mimosa pudica) .
In animals we see the development of special differentiated organs of
^All kinds of reflexive actions which are connected not only with self-preser-
vation but also with nutrition, reproduction, etc., are attributed to these principal
groups of defense and attack.
228 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
attack and defense and also the formation of a complicated coordination
of motor actions which answer to the same purpose. We meet here not
only the direct attack and defense reflexes but also the orientation reflexes,
consisting of the adaptation of the highly differentiated receptor organs to
the stimulus. The chief role is played here by the nervous system with its
coordinated activity. We see, on a par with the excitement of one group
of the body-apparatus, the inhibition of others. Thus a possibility is given \
for the development of such complicated coordinated actions as the con-
centration reflex or alertness reflex, i.e., the maximal preparation of the
organism for attack or defense (with an outward display of inhibition).
As you see, the complication and improvement of the defensive and
aggressive actions depend closely upon the amount of experience of the
individual or species. In so far as both of these depend, to a large extent,
upon the environment, the process of evolution of correlated activity in the
phylogenetic scale is directly connected with the changes of the conditions
under which occurs the evolution of the vegetative and animal world. For
example, the fixation of plants to one place limits the extent of their exper-
ience and hence the possibilities for the development of their correlated
activity, whereas animals, which are more or less unlimited in their move-
ments, possess greater possibilities. The conditions for the development
of the correlated activity of animals living in the ground (worms) or even
in water (fish) are less advantageous than those of animals living above
the ground, etc. Thus the modification of the environing conditions plays
an important role in the development of the correlated activity. Of quite
as great an importance are the differentiating organs of movements when
facilitating the use of the changing conditions of the environment to the
profit of the organism. Finally, the development of correlated human
activity is due to the milieu of mutual effectiveness of individuals — the
social environment (the "superorganic world").
These are the principal statements of the biogenesis of correlated human
activity presented in an extremely short and general exposition.
B
In the process of phylogenesis, correlated activity is subjected to evolution
and complication. At every given state of evolution it consists, on one
hand, of the sum of innate (inherited) reflexes and, on the other, of
reflexes which were trained during the process of individual experience. To
the former should be attributed those reflexes which, being the acquisition of
the species, are revealed in a ready form, without precedent individual
experience either from the very moment of birth or somewhat later. They
are divided into exogenous reflexes (stimulated by exterior stimuli) and
endogenous reflexes (stimulated by interior or organic stimuli.) Exogen-
ous as well as endogenous (inherited) reflexes lie at the base of the super-
ior or correlated (acquired) reflexes, the accompanying stimuli acquiring
the properties of the fundamental reflexogenous stimuli. For instance,
on the basis of the simple (innate) defensive reflex provoked by a burn
or prick on the hand, there arises an associated reflex of a defensive char-
ALEXANDER L. SCHNIERMANN 229
acter at the sight of every hot object or sharp . instrument. Among the
associated (acquired) reflexes a special group of reflexes appears, reflexes
which were trained under natural conditions. They are very constant and
homogeneous and remind us by these characteristics of the simple (inherit-
ed) reflexes. They disappear only under the condition of frequent repro-
duction, if they are not reinforced by the fundamental reflexogenous stim-
ulus, revealing, in that Way, their associative origin. These reflexes are
called "natural associated reflexes" (for example, blinking in response to
menacing hand movements). Another special group is formed by compli-
cated organic reflexes (known in literature as "instincts"). There lies at
the basis of these reflexes an inherited biological tendency, guaranteeing the
life of the individual and species (reflexes of nutrition, reproduction, social
reflexes, etc.). Yet one may suppose that the manifestation of these re-
flexes in many cases (especially in the superior stages of development)
takes place under the guidance of the precedent individual experience. In
other words, the instinctive actions are due not only to the innate but
partly also to the acquired reflexes.
As to the morphological substratum of different reflexive actions, Bekh-
terev believes that the inherited reflexes are effected by means of the spinal
cord and of subcortical nodes, whereas the associated reflexes are formed
by means of the cerebral cortex with a probable participation of the sub-
cortical nodes. The complicated organic reflexes are manifested by means
of the subcortical nodes and partly by means of the cerebral cortex, as
with associated reflexes. They differ from other reflexes in that they have
as fundamental stimuli those stimulations which arise from the interior
organs and tissues and are transferred to the cerebral cortex partly through
the vegetative nervous system and partly through the blood directly.
The nature of the nervous process which forms the basis of all reflexive
actions is deduced by Bekhterev from the general cosmic process of energy-
transformation. The energy of the outer stimuli, when affecting our re-
ceptor organs (mechanical, thermal, chemical energies), is transformed by
these organs into molecular energy of the colloidal formation of the nervous
tissue — the so-called nervous current. The latter, being transferred by
means of centripetal fibers to the centers, can be directly transferred to the
centrifugal fibers, which conduct the current to the periphery — to muscles
and glands. Here takes place the transformation of this energy into the
molecular energy of muscles and glands, which again passes over to me-
chanical, thermal, and chemical energies. In some other cases the nervous
energy can accumulate in the centers, though remaining in its nature the
same nervous current. Yet the responding part of the reflex arc will
remain inhibited. Such an accumulation of nervous energy in the centers
of the cerebral cortex is accompanied by subjective emotions. Later on,
the motor part of the reflex is released, the accumulated energy discharges,
and we say that perception (or thought) has passed over to action.
As seen above, the scheme of reflex accounts for all the phenomena of
behavior, not excepting even the so-called "psychical" processes. The as-
sociated reflexes which lie at the basis of the latter can be of different
230 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
characters: for instance, in "perception" the orientative reflexes of the
receptor organs are of great importance; in those cases when we think by
the agency of words, we deal with inhibited speech reflexes.
Owing to limited space, I cannot give a detailed analysis of the different
complicated "psychical" processes, the associated-reflex nature of which
Bekhterev establishes in the last chapter of his book. Yet from the ex-
amples already cited we can conclude that from Bekhterev's standpoint
all acts of behavior answer to the scheme of reflex. Thus reflexology ex-,
tends its objective study to the whole of human behavior.
What are the ways and methods of the reflexological investigation of
correlated activity?
In order to study the outward human hereditary and complicated organ-
ic reactions as well as the acquired reactions which develop under the
influence of outer and inner stimulations of the present or of the past,
reflexology can attain its object by the following ways:
1) By means of an objective biosociological study of all outer mani-
festations of personality, by the revealing of the correlation of these mani-
festations with the outer and inner, present or past stimuli, and also by a
study of the successive development of the correlated and in particular of
the associated-reflex activity of infants from birth,
2) By investigating the laws of the development of associated-reflex
activity, occurring under different conditions. Here both experimentation
and observation must be used.
3) In studying the mechanism of correlation of the given reflexes with
diverse stimuli — present or past, outer or inner. The knowledge of this
mechanism in animals can be acquired by destroying their brain ; in
people, by observing pathological cases.
4) In a study of the onto- and phylogenesis of correlated and especially
of associated-reflex activity in relation to the histogenetic development of the
cerebral-hemispheres.
5) In a study of the correlations of the objective processes of associated-
reflex activity with the verbal report of experienced emotions.
The principal experimental method of reflexology consists, as already
stated, in educating the associated motor reflexes on the basis of the defen-
sive reflex, caused by means of electrical stimulation of the skin. It differs
from the above-mentioned method (41) in that the reflex is formed of the
hand but not of the foot. Yet reflexology made and makes use also of
other methods of experimental training of the associated reflexes on the
basis of simple (innate) reflexes^ as well as on the basis of other associated
reflexes.^ In his early investigations (3) Bekhterev also used the method
of training {Dressurmethode) , which he thought expedient even later,
'Associated respiratory reflex (Anfimov), associated circulatory reflex (Chaly),
associated knee reflex (Schevalev), etc.
'^Associated reflexes on the basis of those reflexes which are provoked by
means of a verbal stimulus in the form of instruction (Dobrotvorskaya) or of
command (Ivanov-Smolensky), etc.
ALEXANDER L. SCHNIERMANN 231
though under the condition of a strictly objective interpretation of the
results.
In line with these methods which enable us to study the very process of
formation of reaction, reflexology can also utilize those methods which are
adopted in case of an established reaction. Here we can cite the methods
used in experimental psychology yet under the condition of a strictly
objective experimental performance and of a complete refusal of any
subjective psychological interpretation of the results. On a par with
experimentation, observation is also of great importance in reflexology.
But observation in reflexology must bear the marks of a strict objectivity
both during the process of accumulation of the material and during its
elaboration and interpretation. The method of observation is of special
significance when studying the development of correlated activity in
infants, from their very birth. The results of these observations expounded
in General Bases of Reflexology reveal the laws of the ontogenesis of cor-
related activity and elucidate therewith its mechanisms. There is also a
special plan for observing children of school age. These observations,
completed by natural experiments, aim at revealing the correlations of dif-
ferent reactions of the studied persons with the outer stimuli. By reveal-
ing the progressive and regressive reflex-complexes, this observation pre-
sents rich pedagogical material and shows which of the children's reactions
has to be stimulated or inhibited. When speaking of the practical signifi-
cance of the reflexological methods, it is of interest to note that Bekhterev
utilized these with diagnostical purposes also; for instance, the method
of revealing simulated deafness by means of training associated reflexes on
the basis of sound stimuli. This method received a premium at the
hygienical exhibition at Dresden in 1911.
D
As shown above, General Bases of Reflexology, forming a basis for a
reflexological conception and revealing its methods, presents too rich an
empiric material, which occupies more than half of this book. This
material consists mostly of the works of Bekhterev's school performed
during the first decades of our century and, consequently, by new methods
of investigation. We find here some data of former investigations which
are closely related to reflexology. The greatest part of this empiric mater-
ial is connected with those laws which are revealed in artificially associated
reflexes.
The exposition of this material is interesting, as Bekhterev applies the
laws revealed by him or by his pupils to the everyday facts of human
behavior. On the other hand, he correlates these laws with cosmic validity.
"The cosmic process," says Bekhterev, "which in an objective study
represents an uninterrupted chain of more and more complicated correla-
tions of matter, finds its realization according to the same fundamental
principles. Independent of this fact, this realization will be manifested in
the form of the planetary movement or planetary process or in the form of a
process taking place in inorganic and living matter, in particular in the
232 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930 |
form of life-phenomena of human beings or of human society — the so-called
superorganic world with all the complications of its outer relations."
The fundamental principles which Bekhterev reveals in the laws of
associated-reflex activity are, indeed, very generalized. These are the
principles of energy-saving, of constant variability, of mutual effectiveness,
the principles of cycles, of economy, of adaptation, of differentiation, of
synthesis, of function, the principles of inertia, of compensation, of evolu-
tion, of selection, of relativity, etc.
At first sight such a classification can appear very artificial and roughly
mechanistic; as a matter of fact, it represents only a general scheme,
genetically connecting reflexological laws with general laws, though not
identifying them. Under the generalized title of this scheme — the reflex-
ological laws find a full development of their qualitative precision and
specificity.
In his analysis of reflexological laws, Bekhterev leans partly upon the
data of the general physiological investigations (especially upon the works
of Vedenski's physiological school — the parabiosis teaching and the domin-
ance-teaching of Ukhtomski).
Being unable to give here a detailed exposition of the laws revealed by
Bekhterev in the works of his school concerning the study of associated-
reflex activity, I shall refer to some of them when speaking of the current
problems of reflexology.
IV. Present-Day Problems of Reflexology
The center of Bekhterev's school is located at the Reflexological Insti-
tute for Brain Researches in Leningrad. This Institute was founded by
Bekhterev in 1917.^ The reflexological work performed here is divided
into a series of branches and forms the subject of study of several divisions,
guided by Bekhterev's pupils. The principal fields of the reflexological
work in the Institute are as follows: general reflexology (Schniermann) ;
individual reflexology (Myasishchev) ; age-reflexology (Osipova) ; col-
lective reflexology (Lange) ; genetic reflexology (Shchelovanov). There
are also performed, on a par with these purely reflexological investigations
and in close correlation with them, scientific works in the field of the
general ph5'siology of the nervous system (Vasiliev) and of brain-morphol-
ogy (Pines).
A series of laboratories of other establishments which study reflexological
problems are working in contact with the Institute. These are the labor-
atories of medical colleges, clinics, hospitals, and children's institutions,
etc., both in Leningrad and in other towns of the U.S.S.R. As I am
unable to elucidate here the whole reflexological work already performed,
I shall give only a brief description of those problems which I think, for
the present moment, of first importance.
General Reflexology. The work in the field of general reflexology
aims at establishing the general laws of the correlated activity of individuals
®Now directed by V. P. Osipova.
ALEXANDER L. SCHNIERMANN 233
and to reveal its general mechanisms. The analysis of results is almost
physiological. The present period of this work may be characterized as
the period of a detailed qualitative analysis of correlated activity. In line
with the study of the relatively elementary mechanisms of associated-reflex
formation on the basis of a simple reflex (or of another associated reflex),
we come to the study of more complicated mechanisms of correlated activ-
ity. The work here develops in the line of analysis (the analytical study
of the significance of the receptor and effector functions in the elementary
working process ( 1 ) as well as in the line of synthesis — the study of
mechanisms of mutual efFectiveness in synthetic reactions (53). There are
performed on the pathological material in psychiatric clinics parallel inves-
tigations of the latter type (52). The study of the mechanisms of mutual
effectiveness, which I consider as one of the fundamental problems of
general reflexology (51), permits us to undertake an investigation of these
qualitative characteristics which differentiate the more complicated phe-
nomena of correlated activity from their prototypes — the associated re-
flexes of the first order. In going deeper into the qualitative analysis of
correlated activity, we do not renounce the first principle of reflexology —
submitting all manifestation of correlated activity, in accordance with their
genesis, to the scheme of a reflex — but, when stating the objective quali-
tative properties of the complicated manifestations, of correlated activity,
we deduce them by means of analysis and synthesis from the primitive
reflex mechanisms.
The study of the mechanisms of mutual effectiveness allows us also to
go deeper into the physiological analysis of that mechanism lying at the
base of the correlated reflex, which at first sight seems to be quite primi-
tive. A new elucidation of the formation, disappearance, and differentia-
tion of associated reflexes is received when studying them from the stand-
point of the complicated mutual effectiveness of the central processes.
This effectiveness finds its physiological explication in the dominance-teach-
ing of Ukhtomski.
In particular two problems are set forth : inner inhibition as coherent
inhibition (50) and the role played by effector apparatus in the differen-
tiating activity of the central nervous system (54).
As you will see, these problems are connected not only with experimental
investigations in the field of general reflexology but also (and even more
so) with observations on the development of associated reflexes of infants.
Here is one of the points of divergency of Bekhterev's and Pavlov's phys-
iological conceptions. The latter, as is well-known, localizes the analytic
functions of outer stimulations in the receptor part of the reflex arc.
These divergencies are to be referred to the difference in the methods of
investigation. It must be supposed that the mechanisms of mutual effec-
tiveness in the motor sphere are more accentuated than those of the secre-
tory one.
A comparative study was recently performed of the secretory and motor
methods; investigations have also been started with the aim of revealing
234 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
the mutual effectiveness of motor and respiratory reflexes. Parallel inves-
tigations on animals are also being performed.
Among the reflexological investigations of practical significance, it is
expedient to mention the attempt to treat alcoholics by training defensive
reflexes in response to stimuli connected with alcohol. This method was
put into practice in a psychiatric hospital by Kantorovich (38).
Individual Reflexology. Individual reflexology aims at studying the in-
dividual variations of correlated reflex activity (42) and at establishing the
relation of these variations to the constitutional data and to the behavior
characteristics; it aspires also to build up, on the basis of all these data,
reflexological typology. The performance of this work necessitates many
human subjects. The program of the work in this field requires the ap-
plication of various methods of investigation: the reflexological laboratory
method must be accepted as well as clinical observation, anthropometry,
and biochemical investigation. The very method of reflexological exper-
imentation used here must take into account the possibility of a maximum
account of the different reactions which can serve as indexes of the associ-
ated-reflex process. From all the original methods which were worked out
in this field, it is of interest to mention the method of training the cerebral
pulse associated reflex in innate cases of the unclosed fontanel of the
cranium as well as in cases depending upon some operative defect (30)
and also the method of formation of the associated neurogalvanic reflex
(44). The study of the animal (motor) and vegetative (respiratory and
galvanic) reactions and their mutual effectiveness in the process of forma-
tion and differentiation of the associative reflexes (43) offers fundamental
material for the description of reflexological types. One must note that
in the field of individual reflexology as well as in the field of general re-
flexology the study of the mutual effectiveness of reflexes is viewed as one
of the fundamental problems.
The characteristics stated by diverse reflexological experiments are cor-
related with the data of constitution and heredity, with behavior character-
istics, with conditions of social environment. On the basis of the investi-
gations already performed, a series of fundamental reflexological types was
stated; plastic, torpid, excitable, inhibitable. Intermediate and mixed types
are also described (30, 44).
When studying the typical variations of associated-reflex activity the
investigator meets with extreme variations lying on the borderline of pa-
thology. Therefore, in order to get a more complete elucidation of these
variations, work with pathological material is performed parallel with
fundamental investigations. When stating the types of correlated reflex
activity and correlating them with the data of the biological (heredity, con-
stitution) and social factors (environment), individual reflexology eluci-
dates also the biogenesis and sociogenesis of these typical variations.
Age Reflexology. The problem of age reflexology is a very voluminous
one ; it embraces the questions of the general mechanisms of correlated re-
flex activity in their development, as well as the questions of children's
reflexological typology. As subjects, age reflexology uses normal children
ALEXANDER L. SCHNIERMANN 235
of school age. Parallel investigations are performed on physically defective
children (blind, deaf, and dumb). Researches in this branch of reflexology
embrace hundreds of children. One ought to mention, among the total
number of investigations connected with the study of the general mechan-
isms of children's associated-reflex activity, the work concerning the study
.of formation of associated reflexes at school age (47), the study of their
diiferentiation and of their synthetic reactions (48). One must note that
age reflexology, too, centers its researches, in line with the study of the
isolated reactions, on the study of the synthetic results of their mutual ef-
fectiveness.
As to the work in the field of children's typology, this kind of investiga-
tion is rather widely extended (46, 56, 57) and embraces not only normal
but also pathological material. Here, as well as in individual reflexology,
the data of the reflexological experiment are correlated with the data of
heredity, constitution, behavior, and social conditions. Thus the signifi-
cance is revealed of the biological and social factors in forming children's
reflexological types.
One must cite also the investigations concerning the elaboration of the
method of associated-reflex therapy, when applied to children's pathological
habits.
Collective Reflexology. Collective reflexology centralizes its work on
revealing the sociogenetic elements of behavior. It aims at studying the
mechanisms of mutual effectiveness of individuals in a collective. The
changes in the reactions of separate individuals during their mutual influ-
ence in the collective (28), the difference between individual work and
work in collaboration, the influence of the collective on the individual and
of the individual on the collective (29) — these are the principal problems
of collective reflexology. Here are studied the rather simple actions —
associated reflexes trained on the basis of electrical stimulation of the
skin or a verbal command (45) — as well as more complicated actions —
speech reactions in the form of judgments (28), and actions undergo-
ing alterations as a result of the mutual influence revealed in collectives.
It proved possible by means of these investigations, which were performed
on several collectives, to state various forms of mutual effectiveness between
individuals and collectives. The type of reaction of a given individual
when in a collective depends not only upon the individual himself but also
upon the structure of the collective. The same person who appeared as
socially excitable in one collective can appear as socially inhibited in another.
The mechanisms of mutual effectiveness in a collective depend on one hand
upon the sex and age of the individuals and on the other upon their social
characteristics (their vocational index, social class, etc.).
In connection with the above-mentioned, there arises the problem of
studying the mechanisms of mutual effectiveness in collectives of different
biosocial groups. This task is commenced by studying three biosocial
groups of children :(1) normal children (school-children and pupils of
children's homes) ; (2) retarded children (pupils of special schools for
retarded children) ; and (3) problem children brought up in special insti-
236 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
tutions. These groups were subjected to an extremely wide and varied
biosocial study, the following factors being taken into consideration: he-
redity, constitution, endocrinology, nervous system (animal and vegetative),
data of a pedagogical observation, of social environment, of personal reflex-
ological investigations, and, finally, data of the collective experiment (40).
The whole of this large theme forms at present one of the central points
of collective reflexology researches.
Genetic Reflexology. The study of the development of correlated activ-
ity in the process of ontogenesis and phylogenesis forms one of the most
important branches of reflexology. This task is performed in a special divi-
sion of the Reflexological Institute for Brain Researches and in the Clinic
of Infant Pedology and Neuropathology which is attached to the Institute.
The Genetic Division of the Institute studies the development of human
and animal sucklings — behavior parallel with brain histogenesis. Besides
this Work, special investigations are performed revealing the influence of
extirpation of different parts of the brain and of different organs (espe-
cially of the endocrine glands) upon the development of correlated activity.
It is of interest to mention that the Genetic Division succeeded in bringing
up puppies deprived, of one brain hemisphere; no difference was noted
between these and normal puppies in reflex formation and differentiation
(39, 33). The comparative study of the development of different animal
sucklings reveals the progressive significance of experience and acquired
reactions in connection with the complication of the organization and
behavior ; on the contrary, the quantity of inhibited mechanisms which ^re
ready at the moment of birth diminishes with the complication of organiza-
tion. Hence those reactions which appear in animals of a lower organiza-
tion as innate, in animals of a higher organization appear only as the result
of experience. Thanks to this fact, the reactions of the latter species
reveal a higher adaptation to the environing conditions (55).
As to the study of the ontogenesis of correlated activity, one must first
mention the work revealing the interesting interdependence existing between
the development of the first associated reflexes of an infant -and the func-
tional reaction. It appears that the formation of the correlated reactions
to light and sound is possible only from that moment (the third month of
life) when the stimulations transferred from eyes and ears begin to provoke
functionally dominant reactions, i.e., orientative reactions during the per-
formance of which all other movements are inhibited. I must refer also
to the already mentioned researches in the field of genetic reflexology w^hich
revealed the significance of the mutual effectiveness of the effector appara-
tus in the analysis of the outer stimulations (36).
The work connected with the study of the development of sleep in
infants and dogs (34) must also be cited. These investigations state that
sleep is formed during that life-period when the cerebral cortex does not
yet function and reveal that the mechanism of sleep depends, to a large
extent, upon those sections of the nervous system which lie below the cortex,
whereas the cortex serves only as the point of departure from which the
sleep mechanism is set at work. These data contradict the conception of
ALEXANDER L. SCHNIERMANN 237
Pavlov's school, which reduces the mechanism of sleep to a diffused inhi-
bition extended over the cerebral cortex. One can say that the work in
the field of genetic reflexology in revealing the development of correlated
activity casts light upon many of its mechanisms which we find already
formed in adults.
Besides its theoretical interest, the task of genetic reflexology is also of
practical importance. It is to the investigations in this field that we owe
the first diagnostic scheme of the development of infants. This scheme
enables us to discover the earliest divergencies of pathological cases from
normal development (37). Researches in infant pedagogy have also
been started.
These are the principal problems of Bekhterev's reflexological school
presented briefly.
V. Reflexology and Related Disciplines
Recently, in line with a series of problems in the field of the direct
investigative work, reflexology was confronted with a series of methodo-
logical problems. A special methodological section was organized in the
Reflexological Institute. This section aims at the systematic elaboration of
the general methodological statements of reflexology and the correlation of
reflexology with other tendencies of behavior study, and also at the elabora-
tion of all the concrete systematic problems of reflexology from the stand-
point of dialectic materialism.
The work performed by this section stated that Bekhterev's reflexological
school, in accordance with the last aspirations of its creator, stands firmly
on the basis of dialectic materialism. How is reflexological teaching built
on this basis? Reflexology studies correlated activity in its historical de-
velopment, in its evolution from one form to another. Genetically deduc-
ing the superior manifestations of correlated activity from the inferior ones,
reflexology by no means reduces the former to the latter and neglects
neither its objective nor its subjective qualities. It pays special attention
to those new qualities which appear as the result of the mutual effective-
ness of reflexes. Reflexology does not deny the subjective qualitative char-
acteristics of correlated activity (consciousness), but explains behavior in
its causal connections, deduced from objective reality. Otherwise, reflex-
ology would enter the line of idealism, which deduces existence from
consciousness.
Since reflexology lies at the crossroads of biology and sociology, it has
to lean upon them when explaining its laws. The "qualitatively determin-
ing" type of validity in reflexology is presented by biological laws when
studying correlated activity in animals, and by sociological laws when
studying human behavior. In that sense, biology and sociology form the
"methods of knowledge" in reflexology.
Thus Bekhterev's reflexology is a strictly objective teaching of human
correlated activity, built upon the basis of materialistic dialectics and util-
izing biological and sociological methods of knowledge. This fact de-
termines the relation of reflexology to other Russian tendencies in behavior
study.
238 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
I shall refer to this question very briefly.
1 ) The teaching of Pavlov's school ( the teaching of conditioned re-
flexes) forms a branch of the physiology of the nervous system. It has as
its subject not the whole system of correlations between personality and
environment but only its nervous mechanisms, it being a physiological
teaching in the narrow sense of this word. It could be a biological teach-
ing of a wider significance, if it utilized sufficiently the evolutionary genetic
conception. Sociology as a method of knowledge takes no part in the
teaching of conditioned reflexes. Thus the teaching of conditioned reflexes
is not as broad as reflexology.
In building its independent biosociological teaching, reflexology leans
partly upon the teaching of conditioned reflexes, in so far as the latter
studies the physiological mechanisms which lie at the basis of the actions of
correlated activity.
2) Subjective psychology, in its classic form, differs so distinctly from
reflexology both in its subject ("soul," "consciousness") and in its method
(introspection) that I shall not discuss it. I shall merely remark that
for psychology, working with the method of introspection, the evolutionary
genetic method is cut off forever.
3) It is more difficult to differentiate reflexology from the psychology
of behavior or objective psychology (I have in view those Russian psychol-
ogists who call themselves "objectivists" and who consider human behavior
to be their subject), as this teaching has adopted the subject and the inves-
tigation methods of reflexologists. It seems to me that the difference between
such a "hybrid" psychology and reflexology (as well as the insolvency of
this psychology) can be best revealed by referring to its methods of
knowledge. Though almost all psychologists pretend to lean upon biology
and sociology, the psychology of behavior uses, in fact, an "autistic" method
of knowledge (i.e., it becomes its own method, deducing the behavior laws
from subjective emotions, instead of deducing them from objective biosocial
relations). The various tendencies of objective psychology suffer with
"methodological autism" of different stages, but, in fact, each one bears
elements of idealism. The evolutionary genetic method in this tendency
remains at the stage of good intentions.
4) Dialectic materialism in psychology (Kornilov's school) stands near-
est to reflexology, as it endeavors to base its teaching upon the principles
of dialectic materialism. Yet, in spite of the great evolution which this
school has undergone on its way to objectivism, it could not definitely
break away from the old psychological autism, as it also proved unable
to reject the very title "psychology." The traces of methodological autism,
and hence of idealism, are to be found in this school even now. The evo-
lutionary genetic method here also remains unadopted.
5) Comparative psychology or biopsychology (Wagner's school),
standing on the basis of the evolutionary genetic study of behavior, could
be expected to possess all the characteristics which would make it possible
to utilize the evolutionary genetic method for an objective study of behavior.
Yet this teaching differentiates so much the separate stages of behavior
ALEXANDER L. SCHNIERMANN 239
development and elucidates them in such a subjective v^^ay that it bears,
even more than other tendencies of objective psychology, elements of ideal-
ism.
Reflexology has little in common vi^ith the foreign tendencies in psy-
chology leaning upon subjective conceptions. American behaviorism (an-
throponomy) stands nearer to Bekhterev's reflexology, aiming at a strictly
objective study of behavior and also utilizing the evolutionary genetic
method, though differences in the very "method of knowledge" still remain.
I think that in the future the methodological w^ork in the field of each tend-
ency of human behavior teaching w^ill contribute not only to productive
work within the tendencies themselves but also to the possibility of estab-
lishing a common language for all the teachings.
At the end of this short review of Bekhterev's reflexological teaching
I am compelled to emphasize, once more, that the real meaning of this
extremely dynamic teaching can be revealed only by the study of its ways
and perspectives. That is why I thought it necessary to pay so much
attention to the history of reflexology and to the present lines of its develop-
ment. At the same time, the limited space of this paper obliged me to be
most compact, even schematic, in my exposition. I should consider my task
accomplished if this short review would excite the reader's desire to gain an
insight into the original reflexological investigations in order to get a more
complete conception of Bekhterev's reflexology.
REFERENCES*
L Abramovich, Z. a., Ilina, O. S., & Lychina, E. T. Concerning the method
of analytic study of the receptor and effector functions in selective reaction.
Novoe <v refleksologii i fiziologii nervnoi sistemy, 1930, No. 3.
2. Bekhterev, V. M. Die Functionen der Sehhiigel (Thalami optici) : experi-
mentelle Untersuchung. Neur. Zentbl., 1883, No. 4.
3. . Physiology of the cerebral cortex motor sphere. Arch, psik-
hiartrii, 1886-87.
Conduction paths of the brain and spinal cord. St. Peters-
burg, 1888. (2nd ed., 2 vols., 1898.)
Die Leitungsbahnen im Gehirn und Ruckenmark. Berlin.
Les voies de conduction. Lyons, 1900.
The contact theory and the teaching concerning the provoking
of nervous conductivity by the detention of nervous energy. Obozrenie
psikhiatrii, 1896.
Objective indexes of neuroses and hysteria. Obozrenie psik-
hiartrii, 1897.
Objective indexes of local hyper aesthesia and anaesthesia in
traumatic neuroses and hysteria. Obozrenie psikhiatrii, 1899-1900.
Ueber objective Symptome lokaler Hyperaesthesie und Anaesthesia bei
den sogenannten traumatischen Neurosen und bei Hysterie. Neur. Zentbl.,
1900, No. 5.
Bases of the teaching concerning the functions of the brain.
(7 vols.) St. Petersburg, 1903-07.
Die Functionen der Nervencentra (3 vols.) Jena.
*This list contains only those works of Bekhterev's school to which I refer in
this paper. They are of first interest for the study of the history and current
development of reflexology.
240 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
9. -. Objective psychology and Its subject. Vestnik psicologii, 1904.
Rev. sclent., 1906.
10. . Psychic activity and life. St. Petersburg, 1904. \
L'activite psychique et la vie. Paris, 1907.
Psyche und Leben. Wiesbaden, 1909.
11. . . On the method of associated motor reflexes. Proc. Soc. Clin-
Nerv. & Ment. Dis. Milit. Med. Acad. St. Petersburg, 1907.
12. . Objective psychology. (3 vols.) 1907-12.
Objective Psychologic oder Reflexologie. Berlin, Leipzig, 1913.
La psychologic objective. Paris, 1913.
13. . Objective researches of nervous and psychic activity. Ohoz-
renie psikhiatrii, 1908.
14. . On the reproductive and associated reaction in movements.
Obozrenie psikhiatrii, 1908.
Ueber die reproductive und associative Reaction bei Bewegungen. Zsch.
f. Therap., 1909, 1, No. 1.
15. . The significance of motor-sphere researches for the objective
study of human nervous and psychic activity. Russky vratch, Nos. 33, 35,
& 36. Folia neurobiol., 1910, 4.
16. . Objective study of the neuropsychic sphere of infants. Vestnik
psicologii, 1909.
17. ■ , Problems and method of objective psychology. Novoe slovo,
1909.
Die objective Psychologie und ihre Begriindung. J. f. Psychol, u. Neur.,
1909, 14.
18. . On the application of associated motor reflexes as objective
methods of research in the clinic of nervous and mental diseases. Oboz-
renie psikhiatrii, 1910.
Ueber die Anwendung der associativ-motorischen Reflexe als objective
Untersuchungsmethode in der klinischen Neuropathologie und Psychiatric.
Zsch. f. d. ges. Neur. & Psychiat., 1911, 5, No. 3.
19. . Individual development of the neuropsychic sphere according
to the data of objective psychology. Vestnik psicologii, 1910.
20. . Problems of social education. Pedagogicheskii vestnik, 1910.
21. . Subject and problems of social psychology as an objective
discipline. Vestnik ananiya, 1911.
22. . Fundamental principles of the so-called objective or psycho-
reflexology. Obozrenie psikhiatrii, 1912.
Was ist Psycho-Reflexologie ? Dtsch. med. Woch., 1912.
Qu'est-ce que la psycho-reflexologie? Arch, neur., 1913.
23. . Principal problems of psychiatry as an objective discipline.
Russky vratch, 1912, No. 6.
24. . General bases of human reflexology. Leningrad: 1st ed.,
1918; 2nd ed., 1923; 3rd ed., 1926.
25. . Collective reflexology. (2 vols.) Petrograd, 1921.
26. . Personality diseases from the standpoint of reflexology. (Bases
of pathological reflexology.) Voprosy izucheniya i vospitaniya lichnosti,
1921.
27. . Psychology, reflexology, and Marxism. Leningrad, 1925.
28. Bekhterev, V. M., & Lange, M. V. Data on experiments in collective re-
flexology. Novoe v refleksologii i fiziologii nervnoi sistemy, 1925, No. 1.
29. . The influence of the collective on the individual, Pedologia
i vospitaniya, 1928.
ALEXANDER L. SCHNIERMANN 241
30. Bekhterev, V. M., & Myasishchev, V, N. Associated-reflex alterations of
the cerebral pulse. Trudy Gosudarstvennyi Institut Meditsinskikh Znanii.
Leningrad, 1929.
31. Bekhterev, V. M., & Narbut, V. M. Objective indexes of suggestion in
hypnosis. Obozrenie psikhiatrii, 1902, Nos. 1 & 2.
Les signes objectives de la suggestion pendant le sommeil hypnotique.
Arch, de Psychol, 1905 (Oct.).
32. Bekhterev, V. M., & Shchelovanov, N. M. Concerning genetic reflexology.
Novoe V refleksologii i fiziologii nervnoi sistemy, 1925, No. 1.
33. Blagoveshchenskaya, V. P. Development of associated reflexes in puppies
deprived of one hemisphere during the early days of their life. Novoe v
refleksologii i fiziologii nervnoi sistemy, 1929, No. 3.
34. Blagoveshchenskaya, V. P., Belova, L. A., Kanicheva, R. A., & Fedorova, —
(under the direction of N. M. Shchelovanov). On the development of the
K sleep and waking of dogs. Novoe v refleksologii i fiziologii nervnoi sistemy,
1926, No. 2.
35. Boldyrev, — . Formation of the artificially conditioned (psychical) reflexes
and their properties. Proc. Soc. Russ. Physicians St. Petersburg, 1905-06.
36. Figurin, N. L., & Denisova, M. P. Further material on the problem con-
cerning the differentiation of associated reflexes of infants. Trudy II
Siezda Fiziologov. Leningrad, 1926.
37. . A short diagnostic scheme of the development of infants.
Novoe V refleksologii i fiziologii nervnoi sistemy, 1926, No. 2.
38. Kantorovich, N. V. An essay on the associated-reflex therapy of alcoholism.
Novoe V refleksologii i fiziologii nervnoi sistemy, 1929, No. 3.
39. Klosovski, B. N. The technique of the operation and the morphological and
several functional results of the extirpation of one brain hemisphere of
a puppy. Novoe v refleksologii i fiziologii nervnoi sistemy, 1929, No. 3.
40. Lange, M. v., & Lukina, A. M. Ashner's reflex, the nervous system and
behavior of children. Novoe v refleksologii i' fiziologii nervnoi sistemy,
1926, No. 2.
41. Molotkov, a. G. The formation of associated motor reflexes to light stimu-
lations in individuals. St. Petersburg, 1911.
42. Myasishchev, V. N. On the typic variations of the associated motor reflexes
of individuals. Novoe v refleksologii i fiziologii nervnoi sistemy, 1925, No. 1.
43. . On the correlation of the inner and outer reaction. Novoe v
refleksologii i fiziologii nervnoi sistemy, 1926, No. 2.
44. . On the associated neurogalvanic reflex. Sbornik Gosudar-
stvennyi Institut Meditsinskikh Znanii posvyashenyi pamyati Bekhtereva.
Leningrad, 1929.
45. Oparina, N. V. An essay on training associated reflexes of collectives of
children of school age. Novoe v refleksologii i fiziologii nervnoi sistemy,
1926, No. 2.
46. Osipova, V. N. On the associated-excitable and associated-inhibitable types
in children. Foprosy izucheniya i vospitaniya lichnosti, 1926.
47. . Rapidity of the formation of associated motor reflexes of
children of school age. Novoe v refleksologii i fiziologii nervnoi sistemy,
1926, No. 2.
48. ■ . On the problems of speech command and group variations in
the activity of the central nervous system of children. Novoe v refleksologii
i fiziologii nervnoi sistemy, 1929, No. 3.
49. Protopopov, V. P. On the associated motor reaction to sound stimulations.
St. Petersburg, 1909.
242 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
50. ScHNiERMANN, A. L. Associated reflex and dominance. Novoe <v refieksologii
i fizioloffii nervnoi sistemy, 1926, No. 2.
51. . The mechanisms of mutual effectiveness as the principal prob-
lem of associated-reflex teaching. Voprosy izucheniya i vospitaniya lich-
nosti, 1929, Nos. 3 & 4.
52. . The mutual effectiveness of the associated reflexes of narrow-
minded persons. Novoe v refleksologii i fiziologii nervnoi sistemy, 1929,
No. 3.
53. . On the mutual effectiveness of the synergetic and antagonistic
associated reflexes of the upper extremities in individuals. Novoe v re-
fteksologii i fiziologii nervnoi sistemy, 1929, No. 3.
54. SCHNIERMANN, A, L., & OpARiNA, N. V. Material on the problem concerning
the role played by effector apparatus in the differentiating activity of the
central nervous system. Novoe <v refleksologii i fiziologii nervnoi sistemy,
1929, No. 3.
55. Shchelovanov, N. M. On the specific particularities of the development of
human nervous activity in comparison with animals. Trudy II Siezda
Fiziologov. Leningrad, 1926.
56. SOROKHTIN, G. N. Reflexological types in children. Leningrad, 1928.
57. . The inhibitive type. Novoe v refleksologii i fiziologii nervnoi
sistemy, 1929, No. 3.
CHAPTER 13
PSYCHOLOGY IN THE LIGHT OF DIALECTIC
MATERIALISM
K. N. KORNILOV
Moscow State University
The Methodological Premises of Psychology
1) In order to understand exactly what constitutes psychology from
the standpoint of dialectic materialism, or, in short, Marxian psychology,
it is necessary to examine those methodological premises which lie at the
foundations of the teaching of Marx, Engels, Plekhanov, Lenin, and upon
which Marxian psychology is built.
What, then, are these methodological premises?
It must be understood that in this article it is not possible to dwell on
the social and economic sides of the question in detail, although they oc-
cupy such a tremendously important place in Marxism. I must confine my-
self for the most part to the methodological, philosophic bases of Marxism,
which are universally known by the name of dialectic materialism and
which have a direct relation to the problem under discussion.
As is well known, the philosophic point of view of the founders of
Marxism, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, came into being at the time
when a deadly war was being waged between the idealistic and the ma-
terialistic wings of the students of Hegelian philosophy. In this war Marx
and Engels joined the materialistic side headed by Ludwig Feurbach, who,
contrary to Hegel, admitted the primacy of matter, nature in relation to
thought. Marx and Engels, however, did not entirely become followers
of Feurbach who, having broken with the Hegelian philosophy, failed to
perceive its extremely valuable dialectic method.
The historical merit of Marx and Engels lies in their employment of the
dialectics of Hegel, which in their hands became a thoroughly material-
istic conception and formed the basis of dialectic materialism. In fact, as
is well known, the starting-point of the whole philosophic system of Hegel
is the belief in the absolute spirit, which, in its self -development, subject
to definite dialectic laws, realizes itself in material nature, which thus be-
comes something secondary and derivative. It follows, therefore, that the
dialectic process of development of existing phenomena is, according to
Hegel, of a thoroughly idealistic nature in so far as the process is the
process of the self-development of the spirit. Marx substituted for the
Hegelian absolute spirit, material nature as something original and pri-
mordial, and in this way brought up the question of dialectic laws of the
development of actual reality, that is, nature, human society, and thought.
[243]
244 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
Marx himself formulated in the following lines his divergence from the
philosophy of Hegel in the preface to the second edition of the first volume
of Das Kapital (16) :
"My dialectic method is not only different from the Hegelian, but is
directly opposed to it. The life-process of the human brain, i.e., the
process of thinking, Hegel transforms under the name of 'the Idea' in-
to the independent subject in the demiurgos of the real world, and the
real world is only the external phenomenal form of 'the Idea.' With me,
on the contrary, the ideal world is nothing else than the material world
reflected by the human mind. With him (Hegel) it (dialectic) is stand-
ing on its head. It must be turned right side up again, if you would
discover the rational kernel within the mystical shell."
Marx did this by actually applying materialistic dialectics to the so-
lution of social and economic problems. These were brought to light in
his main work Das Kapital.
Engels, who studied the question of dialectics and of its concrete appli-
cation to the field of science, has expressed the results of the study in his
chief works, Anti-Duhring (7), Ludwig Feurbach (8), and in particular
in a recently published book of his Dialectics of Nature (9).
The disciples of Marx and Engels developed and supplemented the in-
heritance of the founders. Thus was created the system, which, accord-
ing to Marx, should not only explain the world, as previous philosophers
have done but should also help with its theoretical explanations to change
and rebuild it on new and more rational lines.
Such in its main features is the historical position of the teaching of
Marx and Engels with regard to the development of philosophy.
2) We will pass now to the systematic exposition of the main method-
ological principles of dialectic materialism, which we will require later on
in proving our psychological theory. At this point, however, the question
arises of whether these philosophic and methodological premises are neces-
sary at all in psychology or in any other branch of concrete positive science.
Does not this traditional philosophic basis act only as a brake to the strictly
scientific development of psychology as one sometimes hears from certain
psychologists ? This sceptical attitude toward philosophy would be perfectly
justified if in psychology, as in other sciences, the main task was to collect
facts without attempting to understand and explain them in the light of
theory.
Since pure empiricism does not satisfy any one of the sciences, and sooner
or later it becomes necessary to turn to theoretical generalizations, the
philosophic analysis of fundamental conceptions on which the given science
works becomes a matter of necessity. Engels makes fun of the scientific
writers who endeavored in their writings to avoid any form of philosophy,
and therefore were obliged in their theoretical influences to make use of
the worst possible philosophy. Engels says: "Scientists imagine that they
have freed themselves from philosophy, when they either ignore it or blame
it. But since they cannot move a step without thought, and for thought
K. N. KORNILOV 245
it is necessary to have logical definitions, and these definitions they borrow
carelessly either from the current theoretical stock-in-trade of so-called
"educated" people, who retain the last shreds of worn-out philosophic
systems, or from the crumbs of a compulsory university course in phil-
osophy. The latter tends to give a fragmentary point of view, and leads
to the confusion of the opinions of people belonging to entirely different
and for the most part worse schools. Or these definitions are derived from
the uncritical and unsystematic reading of all kinds of philosophical writ-
ings— so that in the end the scientists find themselves bound fast to phil-
osophy, but unfortunately, in the majority of cases, to the worst kind of
philosophy. Those who blamed philosophy most heartily become most
often slaves of the vulgarized remains of the worst philosophic systems"
(9, p. 37).
Thus from the point of view of Marxism, methodological and philo-
sophic proofs are indispensable for all sciences, including psychology.
At this point, however, a question arises, disclosing the reason for the
sceptical attitudes of many scientists with regard to philosophy : What must
that philosophy be in order to really act as a methodological help and not
as a brake on science? As a reply to this question, Marxism declares war
against idealism and the idealistic philosophic system in all their shades
and variations, beginning from the most consistent and complete system —
Hegel's — and concluding with the mongrel, incoherent, and sometimes
almost radical systems of the pseudo-materialistic order, such as the
empiriocriticism of Avenarius, Mach, and so on.
All these idealistic systems stand in direct contradiction to science and
scientific facts, and this explains the scepticism of many scientists with re-
gard to philosophy since these scientists do not know any other philosophy
except idealistic philosophy. Therefore dialectic materialism objects to
regarding philosophy to be what idealistic systems usually say it is, that is,
a superstructure and a complement to the facts of all sciences, because this
is just what made philosophy metaphysical through and through and, in
this way, inimical to positive science.
From the Marxian standpoint philosophy should be a methodology of
science and consist of logic and dialectics only. Therefore Engels said:
"Dialectic materialism — this is, generally speaking, not philosophy but
simply a Weltanschauung, which is expressed and proved not in one par-
ticular system but in all actual science. . . Consequently, philosophy is in
this case abolished, that is to say, it is at one and the same time 'surpassed
and preserved.' It is expelled in its entire form but preserved in its
actual content" (7).
Dialectic materialism is a philosophy of this kind, that is, a methodology
of science.^ Since it cannot possibly contradict the facts of positive science,
it is sometimes called "within-science philosophy."
It is on such an order of methodology of science that we want to base
the Marxian psychology.
3) What then are the principal conceptions of scientific methodology
246 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
with which dialectic materialism deals? We must first of all discuss the
conception of matter^ the basis both of philosophy and of positive science.
What, from the point of view of dialectic materialism, is matter ? That
which we call matter is, from the point of view of dialectic materialism,
nothing but nature, the external world, and the objective actuality which
exists independently of our consciousness. Or, in the words of Lenin:
"Matter is the philosophic category which is given to a man in his sensa-
tions, which is copied, photographed, and reflected in our sensations, al-
though existing independently of them" (13, Vol. X). Therefore matter
is not the combination of sensations, nor the product of consciousness, nor
is it something secondary, as idealists afHrm. Matter, that is, nature, the
external world, is the primary object, existing independently of our con-
sciousness, and giving, as we shall see later on, the contents of our con-
sciousness.
What proofs have we relating to the existence of matter as objective
reality? Idealism endeavors to decide this question by means of pure
theory, but this is a vain effort. Only one proof exists, and that is collective
human experience which, realizing itself for thousands of years through
men's labor, corroborates unreservedly the fact that the object of these
activities, nature or the external world in general, exists as objective
reality, independent of our consciousness. "Putting the question outside
human experience, of whether objective reality corresponds to human
thought, makes it a purely scholastic question," says Marx. "The ques-
tion— is human thought capable of knowing objects in their actual form?
— is not a theoretical but a practical question. Experience should prove
to man the truth of his thought" (17).
Engels speaks from the same standpoint when he says: "The real unity
of the world consists in its materiality, and the latter has been proved not
by clever phrases — ^which are just so much smoke — but by facts accumu-
lated during the long and gradual process of development of philosophy
and scientific knowledge" (7, p. 35).
Matter, therefore, is the starting-point for all further discussion. But,
is not matter substance, in some way absolute, unchanging, and permanent?
Does not dialectic materialism, ipso facto, fall into metaphysics? No, it
does not, and here is the reason.
Assuming matter as the foundation of existence, dialectic materialism
differs from the so-called metaphysical materialism of the eighteenth cen-
tury in that it does not recognize matter as something absolute, unchang-
ing, and of uniform quality. Engels develops his views of this question
in detail, and in his Dialectics of 'Nature declares that matter, as such,
is purely a creation of the mind and an abstraction because, when we re-
duce all objects to matter, we are diverted from all their qualitative char-
acteristics. Therefore matter, as such, as distinguished from definitely ex-
isting matter, is not only anything sensuously existing. Therefore science,
striving to discover matter as such, attempting to bring the qualitative
differences up to the purely quantitative differences between combinations
of identical small particles, does exactly what it would have done if, in-
K. N. KORNILOV 247
stead of cherries, pears, or apples, it had sought fruit as such — if, instead of
cats, dogs, and sheep, etc., it had sought mammals as such. This is a one-
sided mathematical point of view, according to which matter is determin-
able only quantitatively, while qualitatively it is fundamentally the same.
In fact, matter has different shapes and forms which are known only in
movement, because movement is the principal form of existence. "There
is nothing to be said of bodies which do not move," said Engejs. There-
fore movement, in the general meaning of the word, that is, as a means
of the existence of matter, as an inherent attribute of matter, covers all
changes and processes going on in the universe, beginning from elementary
movement and ending with thought. In this way the movement of mat-
ter cannot be reduced to merely mechanical movement, to elementary
transposition ; the movement of matter is also light and heat, electrical and
magnetic currents, chemical combinations and transformations, life and
consciousness. Movement, consequently, is not only transposition but also
a qualitative change. Such is the dialectic interpretation of matter in
Marxism, quite foreign to the former substantive metaphysical interpre-
tation of matter.
4) The next question which arises is: What constitutes, from the
standpoint of dialectic materialism, human consciousness? If, as we have
stated above, nature or the external world in general is original and prim-
ordial, then it will be clear that being primordial it should precede con-
sciousness. This consciousness appears only when the organization of
matter and the qualitative nature of its motion reach a definite and fairly
high degree. In this respect, primary and loosely organized matter is char-
acterized only by physical and chemical reactions, which are, in fact, the
properties of matter in motion. As the composition of matter becomes
more complicated, and as it adopts a specific cellular structure along with
physical and chemical reactions, there appear also those reactions which
we call organic. In living creatures with highly organized nervous sys-
tems, we find the clear expression of those internal reactions of the activities
of the brain which are called consciousness, thought, psyche. Lenin
in this question takes sides whole-heartedly with Marx and Engels, and
gives the following definition of consciousness: "Matter, acting on our
senses, produces sensations. The sensations depend on the brain, nerves,
and retina, etc., on matter organized in a definite way. The existence of
matter is independent of sensation. Matter is primordial. Sensation,
thought and consciousness are the highest products of a special form of
organized matter. This is the view taken by materialists in general and
by Marx and Engels in particular" (12, p. 38).
Thus, that which we call consciousness or psyche from this point
of view is indistinguishable in its nature from matter, as idealists teach,
and is not more than one of the properties of most highly organized matter.
In the living organism, then, there is nothing except matter, and living
matter is nothing more than the highest form of organized matter.
Where and how does this property called psyche or consciousness
show itself? It shows itself in the fact that the various physiological
248 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930 |
processes taking place in the living organism, apart from finding their ex-
ternal objective expression in motion, also find a subjective expression in
thought, feeling, desire, etc., or, as Feurbach rightly says: "That vrhich
for me subjectively is a purely spiritual, immaterial, unsensual act is in
itself objectively a material sensual act. Here neither side of the anti-
nomy is removed, and here the true unity of both sides is disclosed" (10,
Vol. X). Plekhanov expresses this idea of Feurbach's as follows: "Every
psychological state is only one side of the process, of which a physiological
phenomenon composes the other side" (19). Or, as Bukharin still more
concisely puts it: "Psyche is the introspective expression of physiological
processes" (4)-
5) Having given the interpretation of matter and consciousness we
will pass now to the examination of the question of the relation between
consciousness and existence, between our perceptions and the external
world. From the point of view of dialectic materialism, this relation is
understood as the reflection in our consciousness of objects of existence.
Lenin described this in the following words: "Our senses reflect objective"
reality — that which exists independently of humanity and of human
senses" (12).
Thus it is not consciousness which gives its contents to existence, as
idealists assert, but, on the contrary, consciousness borrows its contents
from the outside world which it reflects, or, more exactly, from those con-
crete conditions which surround the man. This has been well expressed
by Marx: "My relationship to my environment — this is my conscious-
ness." This methodological principle of dialectic materialism Marx after-
wards proved in his social and economic writings, in spite of the purely
idealistic point of view reigning at that time — that the social relations of
people are determined by the degree of development of the consciousness
of people or of their social, political, ethical, and other opinions. Marx
as is well known, supported the directly opposite idea. This was that
social relations are determined in the first place not by people's conscious-
ness but by the economic structure of society, by its economic or technical
level, by the state of development of productive form of nature, and aris-
ing from its relations in productions, which in the end determine people's
consciousness and ideology. Upon this is based Marx's well-known formu-
la: "It is not consciousness that determines existence, but, on the contrary,
social existence that determines consciousness."
It is impossible in this article to examine in detail a number of problems
directly connected with or arising from the afore-mentioned principles of
dialectic materialism. We will say only briefly that, since objective reality
exists independently of our consciousness, here follows the doctrine of
dialetic materialism with regard to time, space, and also causality, which
is not a form of human contemplation, as idealists think, but exists out-
side of human consciousness and is a form of the being of the material ex-
istence, reflected only in our consciousness. Lenin says: "The world is
the motion of matter conformable to laws, and our knowledge, being the
highest product of matter, is in a condition only to reflect these laws"
K. N. KORNILOV 249
(12, p. 137). At this point the question arises: Can our consciousness
reflect with exactitude the existing realities which are independent of it?
Are not those Kantian and other philosophers right when they affirm that
penetration into the reality existing independently of our consciousness is
impossible, because this reality as a world of "things in themselves" is in-
accessible by its very nature to our knowledge. For the latter the "world
of phenomena" alone is accessible.
Dialectic materialism must emphatically object to such a method of
treating the problem, since it leads to agnosticism and through this to
metaphysics. From the standpoint of dialectic materialism, the objects
of the external world perceived by us contain that which is already known
and that which is as yet unknown to science. There is no impassable
boundary between these two spheres of the existence of material things,
and the process of knowledge of the external world is just that ignorance
gradually gives way to knowledge, which finds its fullest and most exact
reflection in the gradual perfection of scientific knowledge. Or, in the
words of Lenin: "In the theory of knowledge, as in all other fields of
science, it is necessary to think dialectically, that is, not to assume that
consciousness is something rigid and unalterable, but to analyze through
what medium knowledge arises out of ignorance, and by what means in-
complete, inaccurate knowledge becomes fuller and more accurate" (12,
p. 80). That is why Engels saj^s that "materialism, like idealism, went
through various stages of development. It must take a new form with
every great new discovery, constituting an epoch in science" (8, p. 36).
Thus, from the standpoint of dialectic materialism, the state of scien-
tific knowledge at a definite historical epoch, though it may not be the
absolutely true reflection of the world and can give only a relatively true
picture of that historical epoch, is, nevertheless, a successive growth of
scientific knowledge, and each new achievement in science is a step
on the road to the most accurate reflection of objective reality. The
history of the development of science and the practice of the life of man-
kind confirms this.
These are the conclusions springing directly from the main principles
of dialectic materialism and connected with the problems of .matter, con-
sciousness, and their relations. We have seen that all these problems can
be comprehended and solved only under one indispensable condition, that
is, by approaching them from a dialectic point of view. We will now
turn to the question of what is dialectic method, and what part it plays in
philosophy and science in general and in psychology in particular.
6) We have already seen that the founders of materialistic dialectics
were Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels since they have supplanted the
idealistic dialectics of Hegel, which are concerned with the main principles
of the development of absolute spirit through the study of the principal
laws of the development of material reality, that is, nature, human society,
and thought. Engels therefore defined the dialectic method as "the gen-
eral and therefore widely effective and important law of the development
of nature, history, and thought." Herein lies the main difference be-
250 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
tween dialectic materialism and the materialism of former epochs, and
especially of the French materialism of the eighteenth century. Dialectic
materialism holds that the world is a combination of processes, eternally
changing and developing, whereas, in the words of Engels, "The specific
limitation of French materialism consists in its inability to conceive the
world as a process, as matter which is in a state of continuous develop-
ment. This idea corresponded to the contemporary state of scientific
knowledge and to metaphysical, that is, to the anti-dialectic method of
philosophic thought" (8, p. 37).
Dialectic materialism, therefore, regards inorganic nature, organic na-
ture, and human society as no more than stages of the consecutive develop-
ment of matter. We have already seen how Engels, speaking of matter,
always takes matter in motion since motion is the basic form of every kind
of existence, so that of bodies which do not move there is nothing to be
said. On considering the question of matter, we observed that Engels
constantly emphasizes the fact that movement is not only simple mechani-
cal transposition of particles of matter but also a change in the quality
of matter. From this arises a system of difFerent shapes and forms in the
motion of matter; the most primitive form of matter may be reduced to
simple mechanical motion of uniform particles of matter, which belongs
to the study of mechanics. The mechanics of the molecules, which is the
study of physics, have their own distinct qualitative form. A still more
complicated form is the physics of atoms, which belongs to the field of
chemistry; it becomes more and more complicated until we reach albumen
in the study of biology; biological forms, as they become more complicated,
give a new qualitative characteristic to the behavior of living creatures,
which we call psyche or consciousness. This, entering as it does into
the conception of man, serves as the subject of the study of psychology.
Finally the behavior of people under the conditions of social life acquires
new qualitative peculiarities and regularities, and this serves as the subject
of the study of sociology.
Each of these qualitative forms of motion conditions specific laws, in-
herent to this particular domain. From the more complicated forms of
motion arise "higher laws," and, according to Engels, "the lower laws,
although they continue to act, are relegated to the background." That
is why the higher laws cannot unreservedly be reduced to the lower; this
will lead only to the uncritical simplification of subtle forms of reality,
and by no means to their strictly scientific explanation. Let us take one
of these "higher laws," for instance, Darwin's law of the struggle for
existence. No one will dispute the fact that this law exists among living
creatures. At the basis of their activities there lie, of course, the laws of
mechanics, but to say that the struggle for existence is only the mechanical
motion of matter would be to give no explanation at all. So it would
be, as Engels says, "pure childishness to reduce all the various historical
developments and complications of life to the one-sided and meagre
formula of the struggle for existence. To say this is to say nothing or
even less than nothing" (9, p. 63).
K. N. KORNILOV 251
There, in the manner of approaching the question of complex phenomena
of nature, of reducing or not reducing them to the simpler mechanical
laws, lies one of the main differences between dialectic materialism and
mechanical materialism. "The materialism of the eighteenth century,"
says Engels, "was for the most part mechanical. The exclusive applica-
tion of standards borrowed from mechanics to chemical phenomena, that
is, to such phenomena where mechanical laws naturally apply but are rele-
gated to the background by other higher laws, is the first specific and un-
avoidable characteristic of the limitation to which classic French material-
ism was subject" (9, p. 27).
This is why Engels condemned those scientists who "regarded motion
always as mechanical, as transposition. This misunderstanding led to an
insane desire to reduce everything to mechanical motion, which tended to
disguise the specific nature of other forms of motion. Chemical reactions
are impossible without thermal and electrical changes, organic life is im-
possible without mechanical, molecular, chemical, thermal, electrical, and
other changes. But the existence of such subsidiary forms does not ex-
haust the essence of the main form in each case. There is no doubt that
some time we shall be able through experiments to reduce thought to
molecular and chemical motion in the brain, but would this exhaust the
essence of thought?" (9, p. 27).
At this point a question arises having a direct relation to psychology:
Is it possible to reduce psychic life, the thinking processes of man, to the
simple mechanical motion of matter, and would this, in the words of
Engels, exhaust the essence of thought? Dialectic materialists say that
to identify psychic life and mechanical motion is not correct. One of the
greatest Marxians in Russia, Plekhanov, expresses himself on the subject
as follows: "Materialism does not try to reduce all psychological pheno-
mena to the motion of matter, as its antagonists declare. For the material-
ist, sensation, thought, and consciousness are the internal states of matter
in motion. None of the materialists who have made their mark in the
history of philosophic thought reduced consciousness to motion or explained
one by the other. If the materialists have asserted that in order to ex-
plain psychological phenomena there is no necessity to invent a special
substance — the soul, if they asserted that matter is capable of 'thinking
and feeling,' then this ability of matter appeared to them to be as basic
and therefore as inexplicable a property of matter as motion" (8).
In another place Plekhanov says, no less definitely, "It always seems
to the antagonists of materialism, who generally have the most vague,
absurd ideas about it, that Engels did not define correctly the substance
of materialism and that in fact materialism reduces psychological pheno-
mena to material ones" (8, pp. 9-10). Lenin is no less emphatic on this
point when he says: "In Diderot we have the real point of view of the
materialist. This does not consist in deducing sensation from the move-
ment of matter or reducing it to the movement of matter, but in the
view that sensation is one of the properties of matter in motion. Engels
supports Diderot in this view" (12, p. 39). Thus we see that, although
252 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
dialectic materialism admits thought as a process taking place within mat-
ter, still it does not follow that thought is the motion of matter. And
even if thought could be reduced to the motion of matter, in any case the
qualitative peculiarity of thought would not be exhausted.
Such are the main points of difference between dialectic materialism and
mechanical materialism.
7) At this point we shall pass to the examination of the main prin-
ciples of the dialectic method.
The main principles of dialectics were, as is well known, established,
formulated, and proved in the first instance by Hegel. As we have al-
ready said, with Hegel these principles had a wholly idealistic character,
in so far as they were applied to the development of the universal spirit,
and were therefore understood as the logical laws of thought. Marx and
Engels transferred these dialectic principles from the domain of logic into
the province of actual processes of development of the material world,
that is, nature and history. That is why Engels reproaches Hegel with
the fact that his dialectic laws were not drawn from nature and history
but were imposed on them as laws of the mind.
Engels regards three of these laws as fundamental : the law of the trans-
formation of quantity into quality, and vice versa, the mutual penetration
of opposites, and the law of the negation of negation.
Let us pause for a moment to examine each of these and their signifi-
cance for science in general and for psychology in particular.
Of the law of transformation of quantity into quality, Engels speaks as
follows: "In nature qualitative changes may take place in a strictly defi-
nite way for each separate case only by means of quantitative gains or of
quantitative losses of matter or motion (so-called energy)" (9, p. 21).
What is here understood by "qualitative changes" which follow as a
result of quantitative changes? By the former are understood those stages
in the development of any phenomenon when it acquires new properties
and becomes subject to new laws which formerly did not belong to it.
The best examples of these "qualitative changes" are those forms of the
motion of matter of which Engels spoke. Beginning with simple mechani-
cal transposition and ending with the more complex forms of the motion
of matter, which belong to the domains of physics, chemistry, biology,
and so on, these forms of the motion of matter, although they are one
connected process of the development of matter, differ widely from one
another in their specific properties and in the law to which they are subject.
According to the law, the qualitative changes do not come about gradu-
ally, but immediately, suddenly, with a definite leap. That is why this
law is sometimes called the law of leaping development.
But it would be wrong to think only that quantity changes into
quality and that the reverse process does not take place. This would not
be a dialectic point of view but a mechanical one because, as Engels says:
"The mechanical conception leads to the explanation of all changes by
change of place, a qualitative difference by quantitative, and ignores the
fact that quantity and quality interact, that quality may change into quan-
K. N. KORNILOV 253
tity, just as quantity changes into quality, that here we have mutual re-
action." Engels emphasizes the fact that often "a multitude of changes
in quality can be observed, as to which it is not yet proved that they are
called out by quantitative changes" (9, p. 5).
Therefore all quantitative processes have at the bottom definite quan-
titative relations, since quality and quantity are simply two sides of one
and the same process.
What are the concrete scientific facts proving the effectiveness of this
law?
We will follow this up, beginning with inorganic nature and ending
with the phenomena of social order. We know that in physics for every
substance there is a maximum temperature under which matter assumes
a new qualitative form.
Take an example from Engels: if water is heated to a temperature of
100° C. it turns into steam, but if it is cooled to a temperature of 0° it
becomes ice. The qualitative transformation is accomplished not by de-
grees but all at once, by a sudden leap. This we see also in chemistry,
where new qualitative formations appear only when elements taking part
in the reaction have a definite quantitative relation to each other.
We can observe this dialectic process in biology. The Dutch botanist,
De Vries, was able to demonstrate that formations of new species took
place not through evolution, that is, by the gradual accumulation of
changes, but suddenly, by mutation. Finally, we observe this process also
in social life, where an old, worn-out social and economic epoch is re-
placed by a new, qualitatively different one, not as a result of an evolu-
tionary but of a revolutionary process.
With regard to psychology, this law of the process of leaping develop-
ment, accompanied by the transformation of quantity into quality, and
vice versa, finds its most obvious and fruitful application in experimental
psychology, which deals with the very quantitative definitions embraced in
this principle.
In fact the entire perception of external influence by our senses and a
number of facts proved in an experimental way show us this. Such, for
instance, is the qualitative distinction of the principal spectral colors.
As is well known, at the basis of this distinction lies the excitation of
our nervous system, corresponding to the quantitative distinction in the
number of vibrations of ether waves. Thus, 729 billion vibrations give
us violet; in the gradual but insignificant quantitative reduction in the
number of these vibrations we do not notice any qualitative change of
color, and only when the vibrations are reduced quantitatively to 621
billion do we feel the qualitative distinction from violet to blue; further,
599 billion vibrations give green; then there is a sudden change to yellow
with 521 billion vibrations, etc. We see that the quantitative reduction
or increase of nervous stimulus causes a qualitative distinction in the colors
perceived on the retina, and that this is entirely subject to the principle
of leaping development.
We notice the same thing with regard to hearing. The quantitative
254 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
increase of nervous stimulus under the influence of the vibrations of sound
waves gives a qualitative distinction in the tones and half-tones received
by our ears, and proceeds at the same "leaping" pace. Thus, vi^ithin the
limits of the first gamut for 261 vibrations we get "do," for 293 vibra-
tions "re," and for 329 vibrations "mi," and so on.
This principle of "leaping" development is brought out still more when
we examine the minimal and differential limits of stimulation. We begin
to receive qualitatively all kinds of stimuli when these stimuli reach a
definite quantitative limit: for instance, a weight of not less than 0.002
gram is necessary for the skin to experience the slightest pressure; the
temperature must be increased to 1/8° C. before the slightest increase
of heat can be felt; to hear the faintest sound, a cork ball, weighing 0.001
gram must be dropped from a height of 0.001 meter on a glass plate, at
a distance of 0.001 meter from the ear. The increase in the differential
limit of stimulation is subject to the same principle. In order to render
the weight resting on the hand noticeably heavier, it would be necessary
to increase this weight by not less than 1/17 of its former weight; in
order to make a room, lit by 1000 candles a very little lighter, it would be
necessary to add not less than 1 % of the candles already lit ; in order that
an orchestra of, let us suppose, 70 musicians, should sound a very little
louder, it would be necessary to increase the number of musicians by 10,
i.e., by 1/7.
We are taught this also by the theory of contrasts: the qualitative dis-
tinctions of contrasts are noticeable only when the qualitative changes in
the contrasting components reach a definite stage.
Undoubtedly, the development and growth of the more complicated
psychophysiological processes, fatigue, practice, memory and forgetting,
etc., are subject to the same principle. Experiments confirm this at every
step. Thus the forgetting of shades of gray, according to Lehmann, does
not increase in proportion to the time elapsing from the moment of recep-
tion, but increases in leaps, and if, five seconds after remembrance, all
reproductions are true, then after 30 seconds tone reproduction remains at
83%, but after 120 seconds becomes only 50%. This happens also in the
case of memory; here there is also no direct proportion between the quan-
tity of acquired material and the qualitative effect of memory. If,
according to Meumann, we take a line composed of 8 syllables to be
learned, it will be necessary to repeat it 5 times, while a line twice as long
must be repeated 17 times, and a line of 24 syllables must be repeated 30
times. Leaping development is very easily seen in memory. The same
can be observed with regard to the increase of fatigue, practice, and so on.
It would be only just to presume that the emotional sphere is also
subject to the principle of leaping development, although it would be diffi-
cult to apply here the dependence of qualitative changes on quantitative
increases. We can, however, establish here those "junctures," as Hegel
called them, which condition the leaping development. It is well known
that each emotion of definite quality, when it reaches a certain limit of
development, enters a new qualitative stage. This is obvious in the ele-
K. N. KORNILOV 255
mentary sensations of satisfaction and dissatisfaction, which, when they
are prolonged over a certain length of time and reach a certain pitch of
intensity, pass into the directly opposite condition. Even if we take more
complicated forms of behavior, we see that a feeling of self-respect, on
reaching a certain point, becomes pride, economy becomes meanness, bold-
ness becomes insolence, and so on, that is, they pass into a state which,
although belonging to the same species, is qualitatively distinct from the
previous state.
Leaving for a moment these particularities, let us take the behavior of.
man as a whole. Much of this behavior will become comprehensible to
us if it is examined from a dialectic point of view, that is, according to
the principle of leaping development.
Why is it that important facts often pass without leaving any trace,
while some scrap of casual conversation, a fleeting encounter, or a passing
remark calls out a sharp reaction, changing our behavior entirely? This
is determined to a considerable extent by the weakness of man at the
definite " juncture," where only the slightest additional weight is neces-
sary, in order to get an effect out of all proportion to the external in-
fluence, qualitatively changing entirely the behavior of man.
It may be here pointed out that the law of mutual dependence of quality
and quantity recently received its fullest and most fruitful development
in the field of psychology through the school of Gestalt psychology. That
which we called above "quality," the "qualitative changes" out of which
arose new properties and laws are those Gestalten which, by virtue of their
structure, determine the elements and parts belonging to them. This
principle — methodologically extremely fertile and thoroughly dialectic —
attacks at the roots that mechanical attitude which until lately reigned
supreme in psychology, both subjective and objective. It regarded human
personality merely as the sum of experience, or reflexes. From the dia-
lectic point of veiw, human personality is, naturally, a definite, qualitative,
structural unity, the separate parts of which can be understood only in
connection with the properties and laws of the whole. The experimental
work of the representatives of Gestalt psychology has proved this bril-
liantly.
Such are the concrete facts drawn from various fields of scientific
knowledge, which prove that the dialectic law has general methodological
significance for science, and is an essential element of the theory of scien-
tific knowledge.
8) It is necessary now to study the second law of dialectics, the law
of the mutual penetration of opposites.
The best definition of this law was given by Lenin, who said: "The
bifurcation of unity and the knowledge of its contradictory parts is the
main point, one of the essentials, one of the chief — if not the principal —
peculiarities or features of dialectics. This is how Hegel viewed the ques-
tion. The identity of opposites (or nature, their "units") is the recog-
nition of contradictory, mutually excluding, opposite tendencies in all the
phenomena and processes of nature, spirit, and society." Thus we see
256 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
that the most characteristic point of this law, as its name tells us, is that
it reflects the presence in actual reality of contradictory agents and ten-
dencies, which interact and in this way influence the process of develop-
ment of real activity.
Therefore the development of any phenomenon or system is always
self-development, to be explained only through the interacting opposites
inherent in the phenomenon or system, the contact and struggle of the
opposites effect the leaping transition from one qualitative form to the
other of which the first dialectic law speaks.
It is clear from Engels' examples that actual reality, which begins with
mechanics and ends with the complicated phenomena of social life, is
saturated with mutual penetration of opposites. In magnetism and elec-
tricity the mutual penetration of polarities may already be observed. All
chemistry is based on the phenomena of attraction and repulsion.
As to organic life, the cleverest proofs of the second law of dialectics
are the phenomena of life and death. "The negation of life," says En-
gels, "is, by its very nature, founded in life itself so that life is always
thought about in relation to its unavoidable result, included in it from the
embryo — death. The dialectic comprehension of life is just this — to live
means to die" (9, p. 15). Other examples referred to by Engels in that
field are the "unity of movement and equilibrium" and the "struggle of
heredity and adaptation."
As regards the phenomena of social and economic life, the classic ex-
amples of the presence of the mutual penetration of opposites are those
facts analyzed by Marx in Das Kapital: the growth of production and
exchange of goods in capitalistic society preconditions all the contradic-
tions of contemporary class society, the division of society into two main
antagonistic classes, the competition among capitalists, imperialistic wars
between separate countries, and so on.
The dialectic laws mentioned above find their reflection in psychology
also. That side of the law which says that actuality is not the mechani-
cal union of separate things and processes, but a most complicated struc-
tural unity, the separate parts of which are influenced by both the whole
and the interaction with other parts — this side of the law finds its full
justification in psychology. It must be clear to us at this point that the
personality of a man and his behavior are a particular but, at the same
time, an individual and complicated unity, and not merely a mechanical
association of separate facts of this behavior — reaction, reflexes, psychologi-
cal phenomena, or whatever name we may choose to call them. And be-
cause the personality of man is a structural if particular unity, we regard
this personality and its behavior from one standpoint, as conditioned by
social and biological causes, and from another, as conditioning in its turn
separate acts of behavior of this personality. In this consists the extra-
ordinary difficulty of the study of psychology — that the personality of man
and his behavior are conditioned by the extremely complex system of in-
teractivity, causes, and conditions, to give a comprehensive analysis of which
would be tremendously difficult.
K. N. KORNILOV 257
The dialectic law we have examined, however, says not only that each
definite material system is a structural unity of interacting causes and con-
ditions but also that the main tendency of these mutual relations is the
struggle between opposites, and that this struggle conditions the develop-
ment of this unity. The question arises: What kind of struggle between
opposites conditions the unity and the development of human personality
and its behavior, and in what form does this struggle express itself?
Here it is necessary, first of all, to indicate the main starting-point for
all psychology, which sets as its task the study of the behavior of a whole,
living, and concrete human personality — the starting-point lies in its
interaction with environment. This interaction may be reduced to the
struggle of two opposing tendencies, which in their unity form what we
call the behavior of the living organism. This act of struggling leads,
on one hand, to the adaptation of the living organism to its environment,
while, on the other hand (and especially in the case of man), it leads at
the same time to the adaptation of the environment of the demands of the
man. "Acting upon nature, man changes his own nature," says Marx.
This is the continuous life-conflict of man or, in other terms, the estab-
lishment of equilibrium and the disturbance of the balance between the
individual and his surroundings. In this consists the process of behavior
of the living organism. Engels rightly expresses the essentially dialectic
nature of this process when he says: "In the living organism we observe
a permanent equilibrium of the whole organism, which is always present
in motion; we observe here the living unity of nature and equilibrium.
Every equilibrium is relative and temporary" (9, p. 23).
Thus the fact of the equilibrium of the individual with his environment
and the upsetting of this equilibrium — are two antagonistic tendencies
dialectically joined in unity of behavior, — constitute the main psychological
fact, which is reflected in the second dialectic law.
The second equally essential law, confirming the mutual penetration
of opposites in the field of psychology concerns the very structure of human
personality. Here also we find the presence of two antagonistic tenden-
cies— the innate or hereditary reactions, on one hand, and the acquired
reactions or habits, on the other.
In fact, if the former, that is, the innate reactions are the products of
the hereditary experience of the previous generations, the second, acquired
reactions must be the product of the personal experience of the individual;
if the first appear ready, the second, on the contrary, demand for their
formation considerable effort and exercise. If the first are conventional,
the second, on the contrary, possess a most original and creative character
in spite of this antinomy; one form of reaction organically passes over into
the other, forming in the personality of man an organically blended unity.
This is why an endless argument goes on about instincts. Those who hold
the anti-dialectic, the metaphysical point of view, regard these instincts as
static, as a special process, inherent from birth in the living organism,
while others, approaching the question dialectically, regard them as dyna-
mic, that is, as a transient form of behavior, afterwards organically wedg-
ing them into the formation of habits of man.
258 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
The structural unity of human personality together with its develop-
ment consists of this mutual penetration of innate and acquired forms of
behavior.
Along with this it is possible to indicate in the personality of a man and
his behavior a number of other antagonistic tendencies, such, for instance,
as the interaction between the conscious and the unconscious. These, if
understood from an anti-dialectic point of view, lead to a metaphysical
explanation of those states, as is the case with Freud, for instance, who
interpreted "the unconscious" as a special sphere veiled in a kind of a
mystic shroud, secluded and nested in the personality of man. From the
dialectic point of view, what are called "conscious" and "unconscious" are
no more than the transitory and interacting factors in behavior, the quali-
tative differences of which are determined by nothing else but by differ-
ences in physiological mechanisms, that is to say, by the work of the corti-
cal and subcortical centers of the brain.
Corresponding fully to the law of interpenetration of opposites are also
those forms of behavior of man which are characterized by inhibition and
excitation, irradiation and concentration, strain and relaxation, and so on.
Thus all the above facts taken from psychological reality prove the sec-
ond dialectic law to be true.
9) The third dialectic law is the law of negation of negation. Ac-
cording to this law, the separate processes of material reality (thesis)
change in their dialectic development into factors of their direct negation
(anti-thesis), the negation of which, in their turn, lead to the confirmation
of the primary situation of the thesis but at a higher stage (synthesis).
In order to understand the meaning of this law it is necessary first of
all to analyze carefully what is meant by "negation." It may be pointed
out here that the term "negation" should in no case be viewed from the
point of view of formal logic, where negation between "a" and "not a"
always excludes the mutual relation and transition of these objects into each
other, because formal logic is concerned with objects in a static condition.
Dialectic logic gives quite another meaning to "negation." Dialectic
logic takes material activity in movement, in its dynamic development,
where the inter-negation and contradiction existing between actual pro-
cesses never exclude, although they may limit, each other. This is why
Engels says: "Negation in dialectics does not mean simply "no" and is not
a declaration of the non-existence of something or its arbitrary destruc-
tion. The character of negation is determined here, first, by the general
and, secondly, by the special nature of the process. I must not only negate
but also remove the negation. I must consequently construct the first
negation so that a second negation remains or becomes possible. How is
this done? It depends upon the nature of every separate case. If I crush
a barley seed or an insect, I commit the act of the first negation but make
the second impossible. For each series of things there is a peculiar spe-
cies of negation which makes development possible. This applies also to
each species of representations and ideas" (7, p. 128).
Among the examples taken from various fields of knowledge and prov-
K. N. KORNILOV 259
ing the importance of this law, we will take the following, beginning with
the examples to which Engels refers. Here is an instance of the law of
negation which Engels takes from mathematics. Let us take any alge-
braic quantity and call it "a." The negation of it brings forward "—a''
Should we negate this second quantity, by multiplying -a by -a we get
c?, i.e., the original positive quantity but a stage higher.
The transformation of a seed also serves as an example. Through ne-
gation a seed is transformed into a plant and then, by a second negation,
into a number of seeds. A larva, a primitive living creature, is trans-
formed first into a chrysalis, and then into a more perfect creature — a
butterfly. Engels takes an example from social life, community of land
ownership, as is found among all primitive people. With the development
of culture, community ownership of land changes to private ownership,
which in its turn gives place, in a socialist state, to public ownership. An
analogous example is found in Marx's theory, proved in detail by him in
his Das Kapital. In its main lines his theory shows that "the capitalistic
method of production and appropriation and the capitalistic private
ownership arising from it constitute the first negation of individual pri-
vate ownership based on personal labor. The negation of capitalistic pro-
duction imposes itself with the necessity of the natural law. This is the
negation of negation."
Engels gives examples of the importance of the law of negation in
ideology and particularly in philosophy. Ancient philosophy was naively
materialistic. It was replaced by idealism, that is, the negation of ma-
terialism. Idealism in its turn was negated by contemporary dialectic
materialism.
In psychology this law may be fully proved. As an illustration we
shall indicate the following facts, which supplement those already ob-
served when we examined the second law of dialectics. We then saw that
the equilibrium attained by the organism and its surroundings negates it-
self after the subsequent restoration of this equilibrium, but at a higher
stage; it is enriched by the experience of preceding reactions. We saw
also that unconscious hereditary forms of behavior, such as instinctive re-
actions, afterwards change into conscious forms of behavior habits, which
by exercise continuing up to a definite limit again lose their character of
conscious activity and become automatic. Analogous examples are the
acts of remembering, of subsequent forgetting, and of new reproduction
in a richer and often creative form. This triad can be observed in the
process of scientific synthetic perception and description. These change
into the stage of deepened experimental analysis in order to reach their
climax in theoretical synthetic inferences and generalizations, etc.
Such is the importance of the third important law of dialectics.
10) In conclusion an essential question arises. What are these laws
of dialectics? What is their actual meaning and significance for science
in general and for psychology in particular?
As to their origin, Engels gives the following exhaustive reply: "How
does the mind acquire these principles? Does it find them in itself? No
260 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
— we deal with the form of existence, with the form of the external world,
and these forms thought can in no case draw from itself, but only from
the outside world. Principles prove to be not starting-points, but are
abstracted from them. It is not nature and human life which are guided
by principles, but the principles themselves are right only in so far as they
agree with nature and history. This is the only materialistic interpreta-
tion of this question" (7, p. 27). That is why Engels reproaches Hegel
with the fact that his dialectic laws are not taken from nature and history,
but are imposed on the latter as laws of the mind.
The laws of materialistic dialectics, then, constitute the widest theo-
retical generalization drawn from experience, from actuality. And since
this actuality does not constitute anything static, but is in constant motion
and development, therefore the laws of materialistic dialectic are the laws
of every kind of motion and development both in nature and in human
society and thought. Laws of dialectics are distinguished in this way
from the analogous and well-known laws of formal logic — the logic of
identity, the law of contradictions, and the law of the exclusion of the
third. The last-named law applies to things and processes in their com-
plete form, as if they were in a state of repose. But it is hardly worth
while to say much about this — to say that nothing in the world is in abso-
lute repose and that the very conception of repose has a relation and con-
ditional meaning, being only a particular and temporary part of motion.
Therefore, when the law of identity says that everything is identical with
itself, this law assumes significance only for those people who hold a dia-
lectic point of view, when things are taken in repose, since in motion
things change all the time and cannot be identical with themselves. From
the point of view of dialectic materialism the laws of formal logic are
only particular instances of the laws of dialectic logic. In spite of the
relations of the laws indicated, we see that, while the laws of formal logic
constitute the common inheritance of science and are known to all, the
laws of dialectics are far from being so widely known, although they are
much more important for science.
But if, as we have already said, the laws of dialectics are the laws for
all changes and development, have not these laws much in common with
those established by the supporters of the theory of evolution? We can
find a complete answer by Lenin. He says: "Hegelian dialectics, as the
most comprehensive, the richest in content, and the most profound as re-
gards the study of development, were regarded by Marx and Engels as
the greatest achievement in classic German philosophy. All other form-
ulae of the principles of development they counted one-sided and poor in
content, distorting and maiming the true course of development. In our
time, the idea of development, of evolution, penetrated almost completely
the social consciousness but by other routes, not through Hegel's phil-
osophy. This idea, however, in the formula based on Hegel which Marx
and Engels gave to it, is much more comprehensive and richer in content
than the current idea of evolution. Development, as if repeating the
stages already passed through, repeating them in another way, on a higher
K. N. KORNILOV 261
level ('negation of negation') — development, so to speak, in spiral form
and not in a straight line, leaping development, catastropic, revolutionary;
'breaks in gradualness,' transformation of quantity into quality, internal
impulses to development produced from within by contradictions, the col-
lision of different forces and tendencies acting on a given body or within
the limits of a given phenomenon or within a given creature; the interde-
pendence and the closest intimate connection of all sides of each phenom-
enon (more and more new sides are being discovered by history, which
brings forward a whole universal process of motion subjected to definite
laws — these are a few features of dialectics showing that they are much
fuller than the usual theory of development."
Thus we see that the laws of dialectics differ radically from the laws
of formal logic and from the general principles of evolutionary theory. We
shall turn now to the question: In what lies the concrete significance of
dialectics in science? We think that the importance of such general theo-
retical laws in science is twofold: first, such laws are explanatory prin-
ciples, in so far as they help in the analysis of the complicated facts of
actuality, and, secondly, they are the guiding principles in scientific re-
search; in other words, they could be employed as a method of research.
Let us examine both propositions, beginning with dialectics as an ex-
planatory principle. What does dialectic give us from this point of view?
Dialectic teaches us to take each phenomenon, including human person-
ality, not in its static but in its dynamic aspect, in its development. Only
such a dynamic attitude towards the personality of man can give us the
right interpretation of such factors in behavior as natural and acquired
reactions, instincts, habits, temperament, character, etc. These, dia-
lectically interpreted as interpenetrating opposites of one process of de-
velopment, shed their metaphysical husk of some static force inherent in
the nature of man. But this is not all. Dialectic laws teach us that a
dynamic attitude towards the interpretation of human personality is not
sufficient, if the development of the personality is supposed to be a gradual
and uninterrupted process. The latter is not an unbroken thread from
the unravelled skein of life, as one usually hears it spoken of. Human
personality and behavior resembles rather the skein itself, in which the
thread of life is entangled in a contradictory and, it would seem, in a
willful way. Dialectic helps us to understand and disentangle these con-
tradictions, in so far as it speaks of breaks in gradualness of the transfor-
mation of quantity into quality, of the collision of various forces and ten-
dencies contradictory to each other, which are internal impulses to the
development of the personality and behavior of man.
None of these, however, would explain the behavior of man if dialectic
had not brought forward the principle that no phenomenon can be under-
stood and explained without a comprehensive consideration of all reasons
and conditions connected with it, of all relations existing between the
separate factors determining the given phenomenon.
These are the dialectic laws, the result of theoretical generalizations
derived from the actual study of natural phenomena and human society.
262 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
From these laws we know that in the study of the behavior of man it
is necessary to pay attention to the dynamic elements in his behavior, the
integral nature of its structure, and the legitimate transition of one form
of behavior into another in direct opposition to it and negating it. It is
necessary also to understand the complicated nature of the conditions gov-
erning the phenomena under observation. Only by taking all these into
consideration can we arrive at an exact description as a reflection of actu-
ality in human behavior, and at an exact explanation as an establishment
of those interacting connections and dependences which govern behavior.
It is necessary to understand that from the knowledge of merely general
laws of dialectics the legitimate course of the phenomenon cannot be estab-
lished, because as we have seen, the laws of dialectics should be drawn from
actuality and not imposed upon it. There is no doubt, however, that a
knowledge of the laws of dialectics is extremely valuable when it is neces-
sary to analyze complicated reality, to understand it, to analyze and find
out its main moving tendencies and causes. Here lies the importance of
dialectic as an explanatory principle.
Dialectic is not only an explanatory principle but at the same time a
guiding principle, a method of scientific research.
From the point of view of Marxian methodology, the chief aim of all
scientific work is not only the theoretic study of a given phenomenon but
the practical mastery of it for the purposes of social utilization. Marx
and Engels persistently emphasized the point that their teaching was not
dogma but guidance to action. Therefore it is necessary not merely to
know, but to know so as to be able to do — this is the principal task of
scientific knowledge from the point of view of Marxian methodology, and
from this derives its definition of the method as a means of knowing and
mastering some phenomenon of nature or society.
In order to master some phenomena, its advent must be foreseen. Only
from the point of view of prevision and, through this, of mastery and
regulation of the phenomena studied can we make an estimate of the rela-
tive significance of the several methods of scientific research. It is at this
point that dialectic begins to play a tremendous part as a method of re-
search, of prevision of the advent of a phenomenon studied, and of its
changes.
All scientists are aware that during the process of work, even when
their research work on some problem is going well and it seems possible
to conduct it to a definite result, one always meets with individual facts or
observes tendencies which do not fit into the plan of research and are even
in contradiction to it. Such experiments are usually called "accidental"
and do not therefore receive attention, particularly since, after statistical
treatment they are lost view of, and do not exercise any noticeable influ-
ence on the final result. As a matter of fact, to scientists of dialectic turn
of mind, such experiments should appear extremely symptomatic, since,
while nothing "accidental," that is without cause, exists for dialectics,
every single "accidental fact" can, on the basis of dialectic principles, be-
come the source of a rising tendency, which if carried out to a definite
K. N. KORNILOV 263
limit, might bring out, in a "leap," new qualitative characteristics and
in this way lead to new and unexpected results.
Such is the meaning of dialectics — as general methodology of scientific
knowledge, as an explanatory principle, and as a method of research.
At this point we will conclude our account of the methodological premi-
ses of dialectic materialism in their relation to psychology, and pass on to
the direct examination of what constitutes the study of psychology.
Marxian Psychology, Its Scope^ Aims, and Methods
1) To obtain a clear idea of what constitutes psychology from the
point of view of dialectic materialism, it must be understood from the
first that we refute the traditional conception of psychology as a science
treating of the mind, consciousness, emotions, psychical processes, and so
on. These definitions belong to the various schools of subjective psy-
chology. The methodological premises examined above prompt us to re-
fute these definitions of psychology. Apart from the fact that our defi-
nitions are fundamentally opposed to the assumptions of the subjective
school of psychology, which always end in idealism, we cannot hold with
them from a purely empirical point of view. As a matter of fact, the ab-
stract analysis of the mind, artificially cut off from a number of other vital
functions of the organism, the usual underestimation of the material bases
of the mind, which condition the formal side of behavior and make psy-
chology an explanatory discipline and not a purely descriptive one, and
finally the entire neglect of the social agents determining the contents of
the consciousness of man in his general behavior — none of these harmonizes
with the thoroughly social teachings of Marxism, which, as we have seen,
aims not only at the theoretical explanation of the phenomena of nature
and society but at actual mastery of them for social purposes. These
assumptions also do not agree with the purely materialistic conception of
man, whose psyche may be regarded as merely the introspective expression
of physiological processes. We are unable for these reasons to admit the
soundness of the position of subjective psychology in the general interpreta-
tion of its scope.
On the other hand, we are not at all inclined to associate ourselves with
the adherents of the extreme objective school of psychology, which either
flatly denies the existence of the human consciousness or identifies it with
the mechanical movement of matter. We regard this attitude as wrong,
since its methodology is founded on what is for us unacceptable — mechani-
cal materialism with its usual simplification instead of explanation of the
complex phenomena of actuality. It has been already noted that dialectic
materialism is not inclined to deny the existence of psychical phenomena
in man. It takes these phenomena only as the subjective expression of
physical and physiological processes taking place in the organism and hav-
ing their objective external expression in movements.
We regard psychical phenomena as one, but not identical with the
physiological processes conditioning them. It is, not without reason,
therefore, that the school of dialectics regards psychical phenomena not as
something supernatural or superimposed but simply as the other side of
264 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
physiological processes showing peculiar qualitative features (4, pp. 137,
147). These "peculiar qualitative features" of consciousness must not be
forgotten, since without it the individual is incomplete.
The reason for our disagreement with both the extreme objective and
the subjective schools of psychology lies in the fact that neither of them
actually studies the individual as a united whole, in which objective and
subjective manifestations are fused organically. It has been the custom
for centuries to divide man into two parts, the body and the soul. The
followers of this tradition assert that these two parts di£Fer entirely from
each other in nature and, in fact, exclude each other. This tradition of
the duality of man has left an ineffaceable stamp on each of the above-
mentioned schools, where the individual is studied either from the sub-
jective or the objective side. It is obvious, therefore, that in dividing the
individual into two parts each of these schools studies human behavior in
part only. The objectivists focus their attention on the study of reflexes
or reactions, which they regard as merely the external manifestations, ac-
tions, and behavior of the individual, ignoring their subjective expression,
the consciousness. On the other hand, the subjectivists aim at the study
of the consciousness, underestimating its objective mechanisms and ex-
pressions. It need hardly be pointed out that in neither case is the indi-
vidual as a whole dealt with, since the study of the individual apart from
his consciousness, or the study of the consciousness isolated from its ma-
terial bases can give only a defective representation of the integral, living,
concrete individual.
On account of the general unsatisfactoriness of the methodological premi-
ses of the above schools, the problem arises of finding a conception of psy-
chology which would provide an organic synthesis of the objective and
subjective in human behavior, in so far as the living, integral, and con-
crete individual constitutes exactly such an organic synthesis. As Ludwig
Feurbach says: "Physiology and psychology are not reality, only anthro-
pology is reality, only the point of view of sensuousness and contemplation
is reality, since only this point of view gives me integrality and individu-
ality. It is not the soul that thinks and feels, because the soul is only
an embodied hypostatized function or phenomenon of thinking, feeling,
or volition thrown into a particular entity. It is not the brain that thinks
or feels, because the brain is physiological abstraction, an organ removed
from integrality, from the cranium, from the head, and from the body in
general, and regarded as something independent. The brain acts as an
organ of thought only when connected with the human head and body"
(10, Vol. I, p. 157).
It follows then that psychology should be a unity of the subjective and
objective, a theory of the behavior of a living, integral, concrete individual
in concrete social conditions.
2) What then is the personality of man, and what is the structure of
personality? The methodological premises mentioned above predetermine
the answer to this fundamental question of psychology.
First of all, if materialism teaches us that the individual is an organic
K. N. KORNILOV 265
unity, an organic synthesis of the objective and subjective (this subjec-
tivity being understood merely as a property giving certain qualitative
characteristics to objectivity), dialectics show that the individual — like all
other phenomena — is not constant and immutable, but on the contrary is
mutable and dynamic and can be understood only in its dynamics, develop-
ment, and behavior. We can therefore define psychology as the science of
behavior, and in this way of the development, of the individual. This is
the first point necessary for the understanding of the structure of per-
sonality.
The dialectic approach to the study of the individual induces us to ad-
mit a second point, that the individual is a qualitative unity possessing in-
herent qualities and laws peculiar to him alone which cannot be mechani-
cally reduced only to physical and chemical or physiological laws. We
must not forget the profound truth of Engels' words : "We shall no doubt
reduce thinking by means of experiments to material processes taking place
in the brain, but is the substance of thinking completely explained by this ?"
It is obvious that more could still be said on this point since thinking has
its own special laws — the laws of logic. It would, of course, be a fruit-
less task to explain, for example, the law of identity or any other logical
law by some chemical formula.
The specific quality of the properties inherent in the individual as a
definite qualitative unity does not permit us to consider the structure of
this individual as the simple sum of the elements composing this structure.
We say that the whole is greater than the parts of it taken together, and
the representatives of the German Gestalt psychology rightly extend this
formula when they say that "whatever takes place in any part of the whole
is determined by the internal nature of the structure of this whole." This
methodological point prompts us to refute the purely mechanical concep-
tion of the structure of the personality of man as the simple sum of "emo-
tions," "reflexes," or "reactions." The subjectivists and objectivists are
both very frequently guilty of such conception. This patchwork under-
standing of the structure of the individual is radically anti-dialectical and
must therefore be discarded. This is the second important point neces-
sary for the correct understanding of the structure of the individual.
Further, in studying the structure of the individual we must take into
consideration the antagonistic tendencies in the development and behavior
of the individual, interpenetrating and negating each other and determin-
ing the process of development of the individual.
We have already described this process in some detail when speaking of
the methodological premises of psychology. Finally, while recognizing
that the qualitative unity and integrality of the individual are specific, we
cannot consider the individual as a self-sufficing entity, from which all the
explanatory principles of its existence could be drawn. We have seen that
in reality each separate element is determined by a complex system of in-
teracting collections, and no phenomenon can therefore be examined apart
from the elements and causes by which it is determined.
It is regrettable that in the study of the individual what would be
266 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
thought the generally admitted claim of science has been grossly violated.
Some psychologists, mainly those of the subjective school, have sought and
are still seeking the explanatory reasons for these specific properties and
rules in the psyche itself (psychic causality, apperception, determining
tendency, and so on) ; others, mostly of the objective school, look for these
explanations in anatomical and physiological mechanisms, again within the
narrow limit of the individual. Neither of these schools, however, speaks
— or, if so, only in a general way — of the so-called "environment," i.e.,
of social conditions and their influence on behavior.
Therefore, the different points of view on psychology become clear:
on the one hand, it is regarded as a science of the abstract "soul," and, on
the other, as a branch of natural science in no way connected with this
soul. In the latter case no importance is attached to man's consciousness,
since man is here studied apart from his social relations; and, without con-
sideration, the consciousness obviously loses all its significance.
Marxian psychology, along with the biological elements, attaches still
greater importance to social agencies and to their influence on man's be-
havior, since the individual is no more than the product and at the same
time the sum of social relations. As a matter of fact, from the Marxian
standpoint man became a man, the social animal with the most highly
developed psychophysiological system, with the gift of speech and thought,
only because he began during the process of adaptation to his environment
to prepare tools for production. Labor and the processes of labor — these
are the sources from which sprang the biological changes in the structure
of the human organism. Thus labor turned man into a social animal
connected with others by complex social ties.
Articulate speech grew out of these social relations of labor, and to-
gether with this its subjective expression, thinking in words, an indis-
pensable medium for any ideological work.
Thus, everything that is human, everything that distinguishes man from
the beasts, is, historically speaking, only the product of labor and, in this
way, of social relations.
Bukharin, a noted Russian Marxian, describes in the following way
this dependence of man on his social conditions. He says: "If we examine
separate individuals in the process of development, we observe that essen-
tially they are packed with the influences of their environment to the same
extent that a sausage is filled with meat. A man is bred in his family, in
the street, in school. He speaks the language that is the product of social
development, thinks with the conceptions worked out by a number of
previous generations, sees around him other people with all their ways
of life, sees before him the whole order of life, which influences him
every second. Like a sponge, he continually absorbs new impressions.
On this material he forms himself as an individual. Every individual
therefore is social in his core. Every individual is a conglomeration of
social influences, tied in a small knot."
It is not only in their historical development that people are products
of social conditions; they are governed by them still more in their present-
K. N. KORNILOV 267
day behavior. What, in fact, is this behavior in our present-day condi-
tions? It is, first of all, working behavior, the mainspring of man's ex-
istence.
What is present-day society from the point of view of work? It is the
combination of definite classes, differing entirely as to the part taken in
the productive working processes. At this point it becomes possible to
understand the tremendous differences in people's behavior, which are de-
termined by the class to which they belong. Therefore we presume that
one of the essential branches of psychology should be class psychology.
This would aim at the study of the behavior of definite social groups, in
relation to the position held by them in the system of production. For
this reason, in our work on differential psychology, we give first place to
the social anamnesis of the people tested, since we consider there is not and
cannot be any individual psychology isolated from class psychology. Marx-
ian differential psychology is above all a class psychology, because only on
the foundation of the study of moving social forces can the psychology of
single individuals become comprehensible to us.
When the influence of social conditions on man's behavior is taken into
consideration, dialectic materialism gives it rightful place to the conscious-
ness of man. In the social process consciousness plays an essential part.
One of the greatest Russian Marxians, Plekhanov, defines the social role
of consciousness as follows: "Though it is not consciousness which deter-
mines existence, but existence which determines consciousness, it does not
follow that consciousness has no place in the historical progress of man-
kind. Being determined by existence, consciousness in its turn influences
the further development of existence" (18, Vol. XII, p. 259). Plekhanov
also points out the definite place occupied by consciousness among other
agents determining the social process.
"All historical research must begin with the study of the system of pro-
duction and the economic relations of the given country. But research
must not stop at this; it should show how the dry bones of economics are
covered with the living flesh of social and political forms, and then (and
this is the most interesting and attractive side of the work) with human
ideas, feelings, efforts, and ideals" (18, Vol. VII, p. 233).
Consciousness is not an unnecessary supplement to, but an adaptive func-
tion in the behavior of man. Marx has expressed this very well in the
following words: "The spider performs an operation, akin to weaving,
and the bee constructs its waxen cells in a manner which might well put
to shame certain people — architects, for instance. But the worst architect
is distinguished from the finest bee in that, previous to constructing the
cells in wax, he has first constructed them in his head. The results of
the process of labor were already present before this process began, in the
imagination of the worker. He not only changes the form of what was
bestowed by nature, but he realizes in this his conscious aim, which, like
a law, determines the medium and character of his action, and to which
he submits his will" (16, Vol. I, Pt. 3).
That is why we cannot deny the adaptative part played by the conscious-
268 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
ness of man, nor agree with the position of those philosophers and scholars
who, at the Sixth International Congress of Philosophy, held at Harvard
University in 1926, made the following statement: "The soul or con-
sciousness, which played the leading part in the past, now is of very little
importance; in any case both are deprived of their main functions and
glory to such an extent that only the names remain. Behaviorism sang
their funeral dirge while materialism — the smiling heir — arranges a suit-
able funeral for them" (20, p. 642). With regard to this we must say
that, whereas naive materialism is in fact organizing "a suitable
funeral" for consciousness, dialectic materialism, on the other hand,
is restoring that pseudo-corpse to life, considering that although conscious-
ness will not take the "leading role," still something more than the "mere
name" remains. As a matter of fact, what remains is a limited but, at
the same time, important role, which we have indicated above. To ignore
this in the process of studying the behavior of man would undoubtedly
be a mistake.
3) It would here be noted that the synthetic view of the structure of
personality by no means excludes an analytical treatment in the study of
separate elements of the behavior of this personality. We regard reactions
as the responses of the living organism to the stimuli of its surroundings.
Therefore from an analytical point of view we call psychology "react-
ology," that is, the science of the reactions of the individual.
Reactions are a bio sociological conception, under which it is possible to
group all the phenomena of the living organism, from the simplest to the
more complicated forms of human behavior in the conditions of social
life. The reactions of man in connection with his social relations acquire
a social significance. In this we observe the main distinction between psy-
chology and physiology. The latter also studies the reactions of man, but
studies them without any reference to his social relations, while in psy-
chology these relations constitute the principal content of the reactions
studied. This is why we regard psychology as a social science rather
than as a branch of natural science.
We regard the conception of reactions as the basis of the analytical study
of psychology, and we prefer it to the purely physiological conception, de-
prived of every subjective content, of reflexes, with which only extreme
reflexologists and objectivists operate, and to the narrow psychological
(separated from all objective mechanism) conception of emotions, on which
the subjectivists work. The conception of reactions seems to us more
acceptable since it includes, with the biological and formal quantitative
elements inherent to the reflex, the whole wealth of qualitative ideologi-
cal content, foreign to the conception of the reflex.
The three following elements may be regarded as formal quantitative
facts in reaction : first, the rate at which the reaction takes place, from the
moment when the stimulus appears to the moment when it is met by a
responsive movement ; secondly, the intensity of the reaction, that is to say,
that force with which the responsive movement proceeds on being stimu-
lated; and thirdly, the form of the reaction — which may be understood as
K. N. KORNILOV 269
the way traversed by the stimulated organ, the rate of inovement of this
organ, and the total period of time covered during its movement.
The elements enumerated, however, do not exhaust the contents of the
reaction. Besides the formal quantitative elements inherent to reaction
there are also interior contents — its social significance — vt^hich are expressed,
for instance, when a person writes a letter to inform someone of his coming,
or of the death of a relative or friend. From this we may conclude that
the behavior of a person taken as a whole, as well as every separate reac-
tion of a person, represents unity of form and content of qualitative and
quantitative elements and of biological and social significance.
4) The methodological premises examined above determine entirely the
methods employed by us in the study of reactions. We look upon method
not only as a means of knowing some particular phenomenon but also as a
means of securing control over this phenomenon. In order to control this
phenomenon it is necessary to foresee its advent. From this point of view
of foreseeing, we estimate the value of different methods of scientific re-
search. We presume that the first and most elementary stage of human
knowledge in the sense of prevision is the method of simple objective
observation.
What does this give us? Applied alone, the most that it does, is that it
helps us to establish a fact and describe it comprehensively. We speak of
its application to single cases since the multiple application of observation
becomes the statistical method, the importance of which we will refer to
later. In any case the method of observation of complex phenomena
gives only the minimum possibility of prevision of the advent and results
of the further development of the phenomena under observation. Only
when dealing with very monotonous, mechanically recurring phenomena,
as, for instance, in astronomy and a few other sciences, can we, by this
method, foresee and foretell the development of the object observed.
Much more important, in the sense of prevision, is the statistical method
of research. In this case objective observation of definite analogous phe-
nomena is multiple and then is submitted to a quantitative calculation.
This method makes it possible to establish the degree of probability of the
advent of the particular phenomenon. There is no authentic prevision in
this case, except those rare cases when the statistics obtained show 100%
of probability, that is, full authenticity. The statistical method does not
give authentic prevision for the same reason that objective observation does
not give it. In this case we deal only with the description of facts, with-
out explaining them, without establishing the reasons, just as in the sta-
tistical calculation we establish only the presence of a prevailing tendency
without disclosing the reason for the recurrence of the given phenomenon
a particular number of times or for its reaching a particular degree. And
the more complex the phenomenon, the more likely it is to be the result of
many causes and the clearer becomes the narrowness of the limits and
the powerlessness of the statistical method.
The third and more perfect stage of scientific knowledge in the sense of
prevision is the experimental method. Here we are enabled to disclose the
principal cause of a particular phenomenon and, in this way, not only to
270 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
describe but also to explain it, thus giving fully authentic results, on the
basis of which we can foresee the approach of the given phenomena and
control them.
Let us now consider the test method. This we regard as simple deduc-
tion, as a conclusion drawn from general principles, established by means of
inductions, that is, on the basis of objective observation, statistical and ex-
perimental methods, applied to individual cases. Therefore, the import-
ance of this or that system of tests is wholly determined by those of the
above-mentioned inductive methods the tests are influenced by.
Passing now to the description of psychological experiment, it should be
remarked that this differs from ordinary scientific experiment in so far as
the results, in the case of psychology, usually show two features: on one
hand, the objective quantitative evidence of reaction given by the apparatus
applied, and, on the other hand, a corresponding qualitative evidence given
by the person tested.
Since, however, all scientifically-conducted experiments should exclude
conflicting elements and be uniform in character, it follows that psycho-
logical experiments should not form an exception in this respect. Their
objective and subjective elements should be carried to an unconditional
unity, and in this uniting of qualitatively various elements in one whole
lies, perhaps, the greatest difliculty of conducting psychological experiments,
as compared to both scientific experiments and to pure introspection, where
we deal only with homogeneous elements. But whenever the slightest
dissonance occurs between the subjective and objective data, not to speak
of open conflict, there can be no doubt that since the data of self-observa-
tion are prone to be mistaken, they should always take a subordinate
position in relation to the objective side of the experiment. The task of the
psychologist in this case is almost analogous to that of a doctor diagnosing a
disease. The physician also tries to bring into agreement and connection
the subjective evidence of the patient and the objective signs of the disease,
keeping, however, the center of gravity on the objective evidence and only
under its control establishing the diagnosis of the disease. Similarly, in
experimental psychological research it is necessary to bring into agreement
the evidence of self-observation with that of objective valuations, con-
trolling the first by means of the last.
From all this we can make our final conclusion, that only the objective
side of an experiment is a sufficient guarantee of its authenticity. As regards
the subjective side, that is, the data of self-observation, these possess signifi-
cance only in so far as they are corroborated by the objective facts.
5) Here the question arises: What are the problems treated in our
Institute, and how are they solved in accordance with our methodology?
In reply we must point to the fact that only five years have passed since
we first began to study psychological problems in the light of dialectic
materialism. During this time our attention has been occupied mainly
with the working out of our methodological principles and the search for
concrete means by which to direct our experimental work. This search
was conducted by two main paths: first, the study of so-called class and
K. N. KORNILOV 271
collective psychology and, secondly, the study of the structure and mechan-
ism of separate concrete forms of the behavior of men and animals.
In the first section of the work on class and collective psychology, we
group under the head of class psychology the study of individuals as repre-
sentatives of a definite, social, productive group. From our standpoint,
class psychology is a branch of comparative psychology, setting us the task
of distinguishing between the behavior of representatives of different
classes. It is scarcely necessary to explain why class psychology is now
the center of attention in Marxian psychology. The point is that in the
study of behavior we cannot operate with man taken in the abstract, man in
general, since from the Marxian standpoint man is a combination and
product of definite social relations, and, first of all, of those connected with
production, that is to say, class relations. It is obvious, therefore, that the
behavior of man must bear the stamp of the class to which he belongs. In
fact, if we take the constitutional peculiarities of people, the sphere of their
instincts and emotions, the nature of their perceptions, the formation of
their habits, everything, including their manner of thinking and speaking,
we see that all these forms of behavior in different classes and sub-classes
(the bourgeoisie, the proletariat of the towns and villages, the intelli-
gentsia, etc.) possess their own specific features and distinction, very little
studied up to the present.
Along with the study of class psychology the problems of collective psy-
chology also claim our attention. By the latter we understand the study
of those characteristic peculiarities in behavior, arising under the influence
of the mutual relations of people. The importance of the study of the
collective behavior of people for Marxian psychology can hardly be en-
larged upon here since, if the latter aims not only at the theoretical explana-
tion of this behavior but also at its control for the purpose of its social
rationalization, then the best way to achieve this purpose is to study col-
lective and, particularly, class psychology.
That is why this year our Institute is undertaking extensive psychological
research in class and collective psychology in one of the important manu-
facturing enterprises in Moscow. It is too early, of course, to speak of
any concrete results of our researches in that field.
6) With regard to another cross-section of our research, that is,
the study of the structure and mechanisms of separate forms of the behavior
of human beings and animals — we have a series of complete experimental
works already published. It is necessary to pause here for a description
of those which are more or less connected with our methodology.
We shall begin with an outline of those works in general psychology
which have been carried out by the so-called reactological method, set out
in detail in my book. The Study of Human Reactions ("reactology").
By this method it is possible to obtain at one time the quantitative and
qualitative characteristics of the phenomena of reactions.
As mentioned above, the quantitative and qualitative elements of the
phenomena of reactions are: first, the rate at which the reaction takes
place; secondly, its intensity; thirdly, the form of movements in reaction;
and, fourthly, its contents or social significance. In order to study the rate
272 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
at which the reaction takes place, we used a method generally known in
psychology as the chronometric method, using a Hipp chronoscope. In
measuring the intensity of reactions, we used the dynamometric method,
employing an instrument specially designed by me for this purpose, the
dynamoscope.
The latter shows in milligrams and millimeters the work done during
the reaction. For the quantitative calculation of the form of movement of
the reaction we employ the motor-graphic method, and, with the assistance
of the dynamoscope, obtain the triple expression indicated above: first, the
size, or the way traversed by the stimulated organ ; secondly, the rate of
movement of the organ; and, thirdly, the period of time during which the
organ moves.
The dynamoscope is so constructed that it can be attached to the chrono-
scope, and therefore it is possible to obtain at one and the same time all
the three types of reactions, the speed rate, intensity, and form of move-
ment.
The contents of reactions, however, are subject to qualitative measure-
ments as supplied by self-observation, the significance of which we accept
only under one condition, that is, if they are controlled by the objective
data.
Since all the various reactions of man can be reduced to a few principal
forms, beginning with the simplest and ending with the most complicated,
research work was carried out chiefly on those main forms. There are
seven main forms of reaction. Taken together they constitute what we
call the gamut of man's reactions, on account of their gradually increasing
complexity. These seven main forms of reaction are as follows:
The first and most elementary is the so-called natural reaction, during
which a person remains in a more or less natural state, executes his tasks
without any particular strain as far as it is compatible with his nature, and
distributes his energy more or less equally between the objects of his work
and his movements. As a rule the natural type of reaction under the
condition of everyday life is inherent to that type of work which requires
neither intense mental activity nor intense muscular exercise. Under
laboratory conditions, the simplest prototype of this kind of reaction is the
quiet and free reacting of the persons undergoing the tests to simple stimuli
of seeing, hearing, feeling, etc.
The second form is muscular reaction. In this case a person strains his
energy intensely, concentrating it mostly in his movement. Under this
head should be grouped such reactions as in the case of a wood-cutter
hewing wood or a laborer working on the soil. In the laboratory experi-
ments this type of reaction was obtained by various kinds of stimuli while
the whole of the energy of the subject was concentrated on the movement
of one of his arms.
The third form is the sensory reaction, during which almost all energy
is concentrated on the object of work, and distracted, more or less, from
movement, as, for instance, in the case of a turner, a watchmaker, etc.
In the laboratory experiments the attention of the subjects had to be con-
centrated entirely on the perception of the stimuli.
K. N, KORNILOV 273
The fourth form is the discriminatory reaction. In this case it is neces-
sary to react to more than one stimulus, and to distinguish from among
those already known a certain new stimulus. A typical example of this
kind of reaction is that of composition in printing. In the laboratory en-
vironment similar reactions are obtained by the producing of one of two
or four or an even greater number of previously conditioned stimuli, to
which the subject must react.
The fifth is an even more complicated reaction — the selective reaction.
In this case the subject not only distinguishes the stimuli but also combines
each of them with some movement or with the refusal to make such a
movement. Such, for instance, is the reaction of a tram-driver, a chauf-
feur, etc. In the laboratory the prototype of this is the reaction of the
subject to various stimuli with previously conditioned movements or his
refusal to make these movements in response to each of these stimuli.
The sixth form is the reaction of recognition. Here the person reacts
to stimuli previously unknown to him. In everyday life, these conditions
are obtained when a person visits a museum or exhibition with which he
was formerly unacquainted. In the laboratory these reactions are caused
by the presentation to the subject of various objects of printed matter with
which he was formerly unacquainted.
Under the last and most complex form are included the reactions of
logical order. In this case the subject reacts to stimuli demanding some-
times very complicated logical operations. The best illustration of these
reactions in daily life is constituted by the processes of the mind of the
representatives of liberal professions when they accomplish various logical
operations after the perception and conscious recognition of the material
presented. In the laboratory these were reactions beginning with simple
primitive association of words and concluding with the most complex forms
of influence, calculations, etc.
7) By the juxtaposition of the data of all the subjects, in the analysis
of the data of natural reactions, the typological side of the research work
emerges with extreme clearness. It appears that all the people tested
showed a marked tendency to one of the four following types of reaction:
one type of reaction, which was quick and strong, has been called by us
the muscular active; another, which was slow but strongs the sensorial
active type; a third type was quick but of low intensity — the muscular
passive; and the fourth was slow and of low intensity — the sensorial passive.
type.
It should be here pointed out that, in the correlation of dynamic and
motor-graphic sides of reactions, a complete parallelism is present. With
the increase of the intensity of reaction there is also an increase in the
route covered and the average rate of movement of the reacting organ,
with, however, but slight change in the period of time of the movement.
In the transition to muscular reaction of all the persons tested a different
law was discovered. During the concentrations of energy on the reacting
organ the reaction reached its greatest speed and intensity, with a parallel
increase in the route covered and the rate of movement of the reacting
274 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
organ. In the case of the sensorial method of reacting a contrary effect
was produced. During the concentration of all the energy on the stimulus
the reaction slowed down noticeably, and its intensity fell, while the route
covered and the rate of movement of the reacting organ decreased.
By the juxtaposition of the data of these three types of reaction we saw
clearly the tendency of each of the subjects to one or another method of
reacting with regard to speed, intensity, and form of movement of the
reactions. At this point the necessity arose of finding out if it was possible,
and if so how far possible, to achieve the transition of persons from one
manner of reaction to another. For this purpose, persons exhibiting a
tendency to a definite type of reaction were made to react in an entirely
different way.
The results were as follows : First, persons of the sensorial passive type,
that is, subject to slow reactions of low intensity, pass over easiest of all to
the directly opposite manner of reaction, i.e., the quick, strong reaction.
Secondly, persons of a sensorial active type, that is, reacting slowly but
strongly, very easily increase the rate of their reactions, but with difficulty
lower their intensity. Thirdly, persons of a muscular passive type, that is,
with quick reactions but of low intensity, increase the force of the reactions
easily, but slow them down with difficulty. Fourthly, persons of a muscu-
lar-active type, that is, with a tendency to quick and intense reactions,
find it most difficult of all to pass to the opposite manner of reacting, i.e.,
to the slow and weak reactions.
It must be noted, in particular, that experiments carried out at the same
time on the measurement on the dynamoscope of energy expended at the
instant of reaction and the measurement on the ergograph of energy ex-
pended during protracted work did not show a strict correlation. The
expenditure of a tremendous amount of energy in separate reactions is abso-
lutely no guarantee that during prolonged work a person may expend a
correspondingly larger amount of energy. Very frequently intense reac-
tions require a very small amount of energy when the work is prolonged,
and, on the contrary, weak reactions at each separate instant are sometimes
combined with a considerable amount of energy expended during pro-
longed work.
It is interesting here to note that the sex of the persons tested does not
play any part in the intensity of the reactions. Extensively conducted tests
made on more than fifty persons of both sexes failed to show any appreci-
able difference due to sex. In both cases there were men as well as women
who expended either tremendously much or surprisingly little energy in
the process of reactions.
With regard to research work on the more complex forms of reaction,
that is to say, discrimination, selection, recognition, and the logical type of
reaction, the results of all these researches proved only one point. That
is: the greater the task in the sense of quantity and complexity of
stimuli presented and of their combination with movements or logical
operations, the slower was the reaction, together with a great reduction in
the amount of energy expended in movement and in the figures showing
the form of the movement.
K. N. KORNILOV 275
Thus all the research work conducted on different kinds of reactions is
clearly marked with the stamp of a definite regularity existing between the
quantitative and qualitative sides of reaction, between the transitory, dy-
namic, and motor elements on one hand, and the complexity of the central
process of the reaction on the other. We see, in fact, that in muscular re-
action, where, as is well known, the central process is of an elementary
nature (leading many psychologists to identify this reaction with simple re-
flexive movement), the external release of energy in the movements of the
reacting organ reaches its maximum in the minimum period of time of the
reaction. Then, in the sensorial reaction, where we are faced with a more
complex central process, the intensity of the peripheral expenditure of
energy falls, together with the general slowing-down of the time of the pro-
cess of the reaction. Finally, during the further complication of the central
process in the reactions of discrimination, selection, recognition, etc., we ob-
serve anew the same gradual decline of both the peripheral expenditure of
energy and of the figures characterizing the form of movement, together
with the consequent slowing-down of the time of the reaction. Thus, it
appears that with the complications of the central process of the reaction,
a slowing down takes place in the time of the reaction, with a reduction
in the expenditure of energy on the movement of the reacting organ, as
well as in the route and rate of this movement. The central and the
peripheral expenditures of energy prove to be two polarities mutually ne-
gating each other in the process of reaction.
I have called this point the principle of the monopolar expenditure of
energy, in an attempt to express the distinction between the two contra-
dictory elements in the process of reaction — the central and the peripheral
— in which the complication and strengthening of one is invariably accom-
panied by the fall of the other.
The facts of life, apparently, entirely corroborated the truth of this
principle. It is impossible, for instance, to be engaged in some complicated
mental work, demanding great central expenditure of energy, and at the
same time expend a great deal of energy on external movements of the
organism, and vice versa. This can be seen in the external position of the
body during profound mental activity. There is neither gesticulation
nor movement ; only a face expressing deep concentration, staring its fixed
gaze on a single point, tells us that the organism is striving to reduce its
expenditure of energy to the minimum, even to the movement of the eye-
balls. Facts disclosed about the physiological nervous system and the
neuro- and psychopathology of the regulating activity of the central
mechanism, which are governed by laws that when violated cause a sharp
increase in the reflexive activity of the organism, clearly demonstrate the
principle of monopolarity in the behavior of man.
Starting from this principle of monopolar expenditure of energy, I have
drawn some conclusions in reactology which could be applied by teachers
and psychotechnicians since the central expenditure of energy is usually
termed mental labor and the peripheral expenditure as physical labor. I
have, therefore, drawn the conclusion that the present intensive striving
276 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
after the synthesis of mental and manual labor in the Soviet Union might
be achieved, both in theory and practice, not by their simultaneous fusion
but by a regular consistent transition from one form of labor to another.
With regard to this, experimental facts show that the transition from I
peripheral expenditure of energy to central takes place with greater diffi-
culty than the opposite process.. This is tantamount to saying that the
transition from mental labor to physical is always easier than the opposite
process. In practice this means that to transform a mental worker into
a manual worker is much easier than to change a manual worker into a
mental worker.
8) It will not do, however, to overestimate this principle and regard it
as universal, particularly in such a dynamically developing process as human
behavior. Like all principles, it has its definite limits of application,
beyond which, according to the laws of dialectics, it turns into its own
opposite. This finds its confirmation with particular clearness in my
latest experimental researches. In the course of research on the more com-
plicated reactions, especially those demanding logical operations, one meets
very frequently with single experiments found to be in opposition to the
prevailing monopolaric tendency of reactions. It has occurred to me that
perhaps we are finding here an embryo of another tendency which is
dialectically in direct opposition to the principle of the monopolaric ex-
penditure of energy. Great efforts were required to establish these tenden-
cies as permanent and stable. For this I was obliged to complicate still
further, quantitatively, the system of stimuli and observe the qualitative
changes in reactions. To put it exactly, instead of the complicated opera-
tions with logical reasoning, I passed to immeasurably more complex
stimuli in the form of mathematical problems, to which any subject would
react after the process of having solved them. On the ground of the
previously established principle of monopolaric expenditure of energy, it
would appear that I should have achieved a still greater reduction in the
size of the reaction, while, as a matter of fact, I achieved the direct oppo-
site ; the intensity of the reaction under the influence of too complex stimu-
li, instead of falling, rose sharply and acquired an explosive nature.
I therefore called these reactions explosive and the principle causing their
appearance the principle of explosiveness.
It is clear, then, that the transition from monopolarity to explosiveness
is entirely subject to the dialectic principle of leaping transition from
quantity to quality. The quantitatively small increase in complexity of
the central element of the reaction leads to the slowing-down of its effective
part and, in this way, to the confirmation of the principle of monopolarity.
The qualitatively great complication of the central elements of reaction,
on the contrary, leads to sharp, explosive, speeding-up of the motor side
of the reaction.
On their application to the concrete behavior of man both these principles
show that, if his intellectual activities are the consequences of an intense
central expenditure of energy with a slowed-down periphery, then the
affective activity of man forms the opposite case. This would be the
K. N. KORNILOV 277
explosive speeding-up of the periphery with the slowing-down of the central
expenditure of energy, that is, with the lowering of intellectual activity.
Reactions such as outbursts of rage, laughter, impetuous admiration, utmost
bewilderment — all these are the best examples of these kinds of explosive
reactions. Unfortunately, the mechanism of all such reactions is as yet
very little known. According to Lipps, the mechanism of these reactions
implies the presence of so-called "phj^sical dams," slowing down the re-
actions. Kuno Fischer regards this mechanism as the "contrast of mo-
tions," Freud as the process of "elimination of internal obstacles," and
Hamann as the "leap from loaded state to discharge," etc.
It is hardly necessary here to say that such formulae of the mechanism of
explosive reactions are too general, undifferentiating, and in some cases
incorrect. No more can be expected, however, from research of a purely
theoretical nature.
Our experimental researches, disclosing the mechanism of explosive reac-
tions, make these formulae more exact, give them a definite content. As
we have seen above, they show that by no means all transitions from
slowing down to speeding up, nor all "leaps from loaded state to discharge"
lead to explosive reaction.
For this it would be necessary to have stimuli which would be sufficiently
complex to cause a sufficient central straining followed by a consequent sud-
den release; such is the content of the principle of explosion.
Unfortunately, within the limits of this article it is quite impossible to
dwell on other theoretical conclusions, described in detail in The Study
of Human Reactions. I must say, however, that the reactological method
has been found to be practical, and is the subject of several important
monographs written by our colleagues.
9) I have dwelt in my book on the practical side of reactology for
psychotechnicians and teachers. A research worker of this Institute, A. R.
Luria, has concentrated his attention on the forms of movement in reaction.
He has studied the affective sphere of behavior, of criminals, in particular,
and has published a series of essays on the subject.
Another member of the Institute, Z. I. Chuchmarev, in his published
work, "The subcortical psycho-physiology," has applied the reactological
method in the field of neuropathology, studying the intensity and form of
movement in the reactions of persons suffering from encephalitis.
Other experimental works published by members of the staff of the
Institute are listed at the end of this chapter (14, 15, 5, 21, 6, 1, 2, 3).
This, in its main features, is the nature of our work on the structure and
mechanism of the behavior of man and animals.
10) In conclusion, I must remark that we are fully conscious of the
deficiencies in our work. It would indeed be strange if there were none,
when we consider that it is only five years since we started along our way.
We are, however, firmly convinced that only along this way may be reached
the true and fundamental solution of such problems of behavior, which
like those of class psychology have been scarcely touched in psychological
literature up to the present time. We have set ourselves the task of filling
278 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
this gap and of making our contribution to the international work of those
psychologists who, in a strictly scientific way, are studying the problem of
the behavior of man.
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489-529.
3. . Experimentelle Untersuchungen iiber den Lernprozess: III. Zsch.
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13. . Collected v?orks. (In Russian.)
14. LuRiA, A. R. The conjunctive motor method and its application to research
in affective reaction. Proc. Moscow Instit. Exper. Psychol., 1928, 3.
15. . Die Methode der abbildenden Motor bei Kommunikation der
Systeme und ihre Anwendung auf die Affektpsychologie. Psychol. Forsch.,
1929, 12, Nos. 2 and 3.
16. Marx, K. Das Kapital.
17. . Theses on Feurbach.
18. Plekhanov, — . Collected VForks. (In Russian.)
19. . Covrardly idealism.
20. Tilly, F. Contemporary American philosophy. Proc. 6th Int. Cong. Phil.,
1926.
21. Vygotski, L. S. The problem of dominant reactions. Proc. Moscow Instit.
Exper. Psychol., 2.
PART VII
BEHAVIORISM
CHAPTER 14
ANTHROPONOMY AND PSYCHOLOGY
Walter S. Hunter
Clark University
Anthroponomy is a science of human behavior. It is not a system of
psychology. An exposition of a science ordinarily calls for a presentation
of methods and results/ but in the present chapter we are given the task of
comparing anthroponomy and psychology with reference to the major
aspects of the two fields of endeavor. The discussion will therefore be
concerned primarily with such general issues as the following:
1) What are the subject-matters of the two sciences?
2) What are the chief methods employed?
3) What kinds of results are secured in the two fields?
Let us first comment upon the two terms, anthroponomy and psychology.
More and more in America the term psychology fails to designate ade-
quately the character of the scientific study of human nature. Psychology,
if the word means anything, means a study of psychic factors, processes,
or states. To the extent that psj^chology is defined as the study of immedi-
ate experience, this immediate experience is regarded as something mental.
It is true that from the beginning of the science most psychologists have
included in their treatises and papers material on human behavior and on
the anatomical structures associated with that behavior; but this material,
which at the point of its inclusion is not regarded as mental but as physical,
does not make the science psychological. It rather detracts from the claim
that the study of mental processes is a science, since this material is intro-
duced for purposes of explanation and in order to give practicality to the
studies made. Psychologists have more or less frankly adopted a dualistic
metaphysical position which assumes the reality of mind and matter,
although they would apparently be equally at home, as psychologists, with
a mental monism. However, as the years pass, more and more psycholo-
gists become convinced that even such general metaphysical positions have
no vital connection with scientific experiments. As a philosopher, if one
denied the validity of the dualistic position, one would necessarily uphold
some alternative view; as a scientist this is not necessary. In science one
may study human behavior, rocks, or chemical processes without even
raising the question of their ultimate mental or physical nature. Certain
parts or aspects of the world are chosen for analysis. Experiments are
made, and on the basis of these experiments the characteristics and laws of
the phenomena are derived. Psychology as such, however, cannot exist
without the assumption that some of the world at least is mental.
. , ! jt-l^
^I have elsewhere given such a presentation (11), and the reader is referred to
that book for a survey of the factual material of anthroponomy.
[281]
282 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
Only that which can be observed or experimentally tested comes within
the domain of science. Purpose, vitalistic principles, and entelechies have
been practically eliminated from all science, except from some biology and
psychology, not because science needs a materialistic philosophy but because
purpose, vitalistic principles, and entelechies do not lend themselves eithe:
to observation or to experimental testing. They remain but words mark-
ing the present but not the future, limits of explanation through the medium
of experimentation.
I have chosen the term anthroponomy to designate the science of human
behavior in preference to the term behaviorism. This latter term, although
popular, suggests a system rather than a science ; and it is, in addition, too
broad a term since much behavior is properly and historically outside of the
field of this particular science. Anthroponomy is derived from the Greek
anthropos meaning man and nomus meaning law, a derivation sanctioned
by such words as astronomy and agronomy, words which were also prob-
ably distracting when they were first introduced.^ Anthroponomy, as a
term, contains no implication of a psychic or mental process.
Before we embark directly upon the discussion of the three major topics
above listed, one broad difference in method between psychology and antho-
ponomy should be indicated. The psychologist believes that one part or
characteristic of man is his mind, his consciousness, his experience. The
study of this phase of human nature is the fundamental task of the science.
If we ask a contemporary psychologist what he means by the term con-
sciousness, or experience, he will reply by enumerating such things as sweet,
red, and kinaesthetic strain almost exactly as the Scottish philosopher Reid
did, or he will reply by enumerating such things as roses, books, configura-
tions, and melodies almost exactly as did the philosophers Berkeley and
Hume. (A few psychologists, usually non-experimentalists, will also reply
that consciousness is an agency active in adjusting the organism to its
environment.) I shall have occasion to comment further upon this in a
following paragraph. At the present moment, I wish to point out that
^In connection with our suggestion of a new term for the science of human
behavior, it may interest the reader to be referred to the history of two other
terms, consciousness and psychology, neither of which established itself quickly.
The term consciousness does not seem to have been used in its psychological
meaning until the time of Descartes (about 1637), and even one hundred and
fifty years later it could still be treated by eminent men as a term designating
a separate power of the mind. Psychology as a term seems to have first been
used between 1575 and 1594 by continental Europeans (Freigius, Goclenius, and
Casmann) in various Latin works; but it was almost one hundred and fifty years
more before Wolff's rational and empirical psychology (in Latin) gave vogue to
the term. The term did not appear in English writing and discussion until early
in the nineteenth century, and in the middle of that century Sir William Hamilton
still found it necessary to marshal detailed arguments in favor of the new term as
a designation for the philosophy of mind. The first book in England to be called
psychology seems to have been Spencer's Principles of Psychology (1855). The
term was not well established there, however, until Sully wrote the Outlines of
Psychology in 1884 and until Ward published his article on psychology in the
Encyclopaedia Britannica in 1886. This was the year of the appearance of
Dewey's Psychology, the first important American book to be so called.
WALTER S. HUNTER 283
consciousness or experience for the psychologist is merely a name which
he applies to what other people call the environment of man. I urge even
the mature psychologist to read again in Locke, Berkeley, Hume, and
Reid. These great modern champions of the mind nowhere prove that
mental phenomena exist. They merely assert that fact. The present-
day psychologist likes to stress the argument that such things as red and
middle C are mental because they are different from light or sound waves.
Water, however, is different from hydrogen and oxygen. Is water there-
fore mental? Where any two phenomena in nature differ, is one to be
called mental ? If so, which one shall be mental, and what good comes of
calling it such a name?
The psychologist seeks to understand human nature by calling the ex-
ternal and internal environments mental and then by proceeding to the study
and analysis of these environments. The only time that success has attended
his efforts is when the environment has been used merely as a stimulus for
the subject, with the mental hypothesis either forgotten or in the back-
ground. It has been in this fashion that the work on sensory processes has
been done and such theories as those of vision, audition, and depth discrim-
ination elaborated. The psychological method of studying man is thus an
indirect one in the sense that the conclusions concerning human nature are
drawn from an ostensible study of human environments. Such a method
was theoretically worthy of a trial fifty years ago. Its failure as a method
for the analyzing of human nature gave rise to anthroponomy.
The general method of anthroponomy is a method of direct observation
and experiment using organic human behavior as its subject-matter. It is
unnecessary to label either man or the environment as mental, psychical,
or physical. The whole universe may be composed of ideas in the minds
of man and God, as Berkeley said, but such a hypothesis cannot affect
experimental work save as it leads the psychologist to study reds, greens,
movements, and extensions on the supposition that he is thereby studying
mental phenomena! The aspects of human behavior which are most
peculiarly the concern of anthroponomy are language behavior, learning,
interstimulation and response, and the prediction of behavior on the basis
of sample performances. These phenomena are subjected to as direct
analj^sis and experiment as are the phenomena studied in chemistry, physics,
or biology, Anthroponomy also interests itself in many other phases of
human behavior. It studies the genetic aspects of human behavior through
the medium of animal and child behavior. And it is seriously concerned
with abnormal behavior and with sense-organ function. In these problems
it receives the cooperation of other sciences to such a degree that the prob-
lems can hardly be said to be predominantly its own.
The first of the three problems which we listed for discussion was that
of the subject-matter of the two sciences. Both psychology and anthro-
ponomy take as their goal the understanding of some aspect of the human
individual, leaving other aspects to such sciences as anatomy, physiology,
and biochemistry. The aspect of man which the psychologist studies is that
which is termed mental, or psychical, or experiential. (That all psycholo-
gists include more or less behavioristic material in their work does not
t
284 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
invalidate the statement, because it is the psychic material and not the
behavioristic material which characterizes the science.) In order that it
may not be said that I misrepresent the psychologist's position, let me
quote from Bentley. With variations, the quotations might be taken from
the writings of almost any psychologist. Bentley saj^s (1, p. 15) that psy-
chology "seeks to describe and to understand experience and the activities
of the total organism in which experience plays an essential part." And
again he says (1, p. 19) with reference to psychosomatic functions, "Al-
ways mental resources and always bodily resources of the organism are
called into use for carrying out these functional performances. That is
why the psychologist calls them 'psychosomatic' functions, thus distinguish-
ing them from the purely bodily or 'somatic' functions, such as the growth
of bone and the operations of enzymes and ferments." One cannot, of
course, fail to see the implication in this latter statement that the somatic
processes which have no accompanying psychic aspect lie beyond the domain
of the psychologist.
If we now ask what experience is we are confronted by the psychologist's
distinction between an experience and a physical object or between the
science of psychology and the science of physics. This distinction is stated
by Wundt, Titchener, and Bentley as that between an object which exists
independently of human experience and an object which exists only as
experienced. Let us again consult Bentley on this point. "The ob-
jects and events of physics and of the rest are regarded as if they out-
lasted the experiencing of them and continued as independent of the
act of apprehension. Animals, the earth's strata, the ocean's substance,
the planet's course, and the electron's oscillations are one and all regarded
as if ordered, arranged, and preserved in existence wholly apart from the
experiencing organism which discerns them. But what shall we say of the
objects and the operations of the psychologist? We shall say of these that
they are only when they are-in-experience" (1, pp. 31-32). In psychology,
"When we proceed to the examination of our tones and noises, . . . . ; of our
lights, colors, colds, warmths, sweets, sours, and the like, we must take care
that we do not slip from experiencing to the things experienced, to noisy
cities, to tuneful voices, to sunlight and shadows, to the chill of the night,
the warmth of the noon, and so on to the other independent objects" (1, p.
35). "And when I say that I listened last night to an orchestra composed of
violins, 'cellos, double basses, wood-winds, brasses, and the rest, it is obvi-
ous that I am attempting a rough analytic description of the orchestra and
not of anything connected with my organism. It scarcely seems possible
that such things as books and violins should be mistaken for the furnish-
ings of the mind ; but this is precisely the first error that the beginner drops
into in his quest for component qualities" (1, p. 36).
Let me give one more quotation from Bentley with reference to "images"
and to "sensations" from within the organism: "... a moment's reflection
will make it obvious to the reader that 'myself imagined as walking' or
'myself remembered as walking' is just as much an object of the physical
order as 'myself now perceived as walking' . . . We all do say in the
vernacular that an object which we remember or think about is only a
WALTER S. HUNTER 285
'mental object' ; but there we only mean that the object is not at the
moment present to the senses. It is no more 'mental' than the book now
in your hand is 'mental'" (1, p. 38). "Many persons think that, when
they announce such an interesting fact as palpitation and trembling in
sudden fear or the dryness of the throat in continued thirst, they have
observed and reported psychologically. They are mistaken. This is one
of the nine hundred and ninety-nine wrong ways of analysis !.... But
although they may come to be known through processes of experience (a
group of pressures of alternating intensities, in the one case; a complex of
warmth and dull massive pressure, in the other), the palpitation and the
dryness are no more mental than the heart and the throat themselves are
mental" (1, pp. 38-39).
Psychologists may be divided roughly into two camps on the basis of
their treatment of meaning. One camp, represented by the Wundtian
tradition, excludes meaning from observable mental phenomena. The
other camp, represented by such diverse tendencies as are present in the
imageless thought psychologists, the functionalists, the purposivists, and the
Gestalt psychologists, includes meaning. The result is that the Wundt-
ians, speaking through Bentley, would say that the meaning-users are
describing physical objects; and the meaning-users would retort that the
Wundtians are dealing with non-existent artifacts. I almost agree with
both schools! I think nothing could be more barren than the Wundt-
Titchener-Bentley psychology. It does not describe concrete things seen,
heard, or felt as these exist in the inner, i.e., the sub-cutaneous, or in the
outer environment. Nor does it give us a description of something mental
which actually exists. And, if I agree that the Wundtian psychology is
barren, I also agree that the other psychologists are not describing conscious
processes, experience, when they describe books, pains, hungers, tastes,
colors, and melodies. Perhaps these phenomena are more properly labeled
physical, but in any case they are the constituents of the inner and outer
environments as viewed by common sense. Both groups of psychologists
are seeking to understand a phase of human nature by the indirect route of
environment. Bentley and the other Wundtians abstract qualities, intensi-
ties, durations, and clearnesses (sometimes adding other attributes, some-
times dropping one or more) from the environment and call the material
selected experience. The users of meaning take concrete objects from the
environment and call these experience. If this is the path followed by the
psychologists in attempting to throw light upon the nature of man, what is
to be said of that followed by the students of behavior, the anthropono-
mists ?
The anthroponomist does not deny the existence of the common-sense
environment. He refuses, however, to be diverted from the direct study
of man into the recording of environmental peculiarities. If you were to
ask an anthroponomist to describe a certain room in the Clark laboratory,
he would respond as follows : "The walls of the room are pale blue, the
ceiling is white, and the floors are brown. A large gray-toned rug is upon
the floor. The furniture is of a golden color ; it is heavy and hard. Upon
entering this room in the morning, a stale odor is easily detected, and
286 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
one is at times disgusted by this odor." It must not be assumed that I
am the only student of behavior who would admit the existence of such
an internal and external environment as I have just described. Would
anyone venture to suggest that Weiss would deny hearing the tuning forks
with which he has worked, or that Lashley would refuse to say that he
had seen and touched the brains of white rats? If you will turn to an
article written by Carr (3, pp. 60-61) in 1912, you will find that Watson
is definitely on record as having seen environmental objects of the after-im-
age type. Let me quote some extracts from Carr's account : "After serving
as a subject in a test involving considerable eye fatigue, Professor Watson
was engaged in carefully and steadily observing one of the writer's eyes
throughout several periods of five to six minutes duration each. The
room was pitch dark with the exception that the observed eye was illu-
mined by a minature electric flashlight. . . .
"After one of these observations, the flashlight was turned off for a
period of rest- Shortly afterwards there developed in the darkness an
extremely vivid and realistic positive after-image of the eye .... All of the
minor details of coloring and marking came out distinctly. . . .Just before
the lights were turned on, an added tinge of reality was produced" when
the phantom eye actually winked.
"Professor Watson has had considerable practice in the observation of
after-images and is, apparently, more than ordinarily sensitive to the phe-
nomenon."
If these statements are not sufficient, a brief inspection of the writings
of any behaviorist will convince the reader that the behaviorist is neither
blind, deaf, anosmic, ageusic, nor anaesthetic. He lives, and admits quite
frankly that he lives, in the same world of objects and events which the
psychologist and the layman alike acknowledge. Let us, therefore, hear no
more from the psychologist that his opponent denies the existence of these
things. What the behaviorist does deny is that any of the objects or events
in the world have been shown to be mental or psychic.
One of the objects in the environment which the anthoponomist sees,
hears, feels, and smells is called homo sapiens, man. The various members
of this species differ in height, weight, color, cleanliness, race, religion,
etc., just as rocks differ in size, weight, density, chemical constitution,
age, location, and commercial value. The anthroponomist takes man as his
experimental material just as the other scientists select other objects in the
environment for their experimental material. Bentley says that the rocks
and the men which I see are physical objects. The meaning-users say
these objects are experiences and therefore mental. But neither of the
terms mental and physical is really an answer to the question. They are
merely names used in order to include or exclude certain phenomena from
the science. One must never forget that, when the psychologists accuse the
behaviorists of denying the existence of a part of the world, the psychologists
ignore certain facts: («) that the anthroponomist only denies that any one
has shown the psychic, mental, character of the environment; {b) that the
anthroponomist denies that consciousness exists as an agency working for
the environmental adjustment of the organism for the sole reason that
WALTER S. HUNTER 287
observation and experiment do not justify such a conclusion; and (c) that
the anthroponomist himself has offered at least three hypotheses concerning
the probable nature of the environment. These three hypotheses are as
follows: first, the electron-proton hypothesis of Weiss (18). Weiss
accepts the most recent advances in physics and chemistry which go to show
that objects in our environment are electron-proton aggregations. Stones,
tables, books, storms, silver, and gold are ultimately electric charges. And
so likewise are the human animals and the aggregations of human animals
which make up society. If the phenomenon of a storage battery is a matter
of electrons and protons, so is the phenomenon of family life — unless the
physicists are all wrong, or unless there is something in family life which is
not an object in the external or internal environment. Personally, I think
that Weiss is undoubtedly correct- I see no immediate way or need, how-
ever, to apply this principle to change our experimentation. All of our
anthroponomical experimentation is in harmony with this theory. This,
furthermore, is exactly the case in physics. Many problems in that science
are attacked and solved without involving in any specific way the electron-
proton conception of the nature of the universe. Even in physics it is still
permissible to speak of steel and carbon and to make studies upon these
substances without directly involving the question of the nature of the
atom. The psychologist should, therefore, not reproach Weiss if the latter
continues speaking of biosocial responses instead of attempting to state the
molecular activities which make up these responses.
The second hypothesis concerning the nature of the environment is that
of Lashley (12). Lashley speaks of the environment as consciousness,
conscious content, or quality, following an old tradition of the psycholo-
gist, and consciousness for him is "a complex integration and succession of
bodily activities which are closely related to or involve the verbal and
gestural mechanisms and hence most frequently come to social expres-
sion." Lashley also stresses the ultimate physicochemical nature of these
bodily integrations.
The third hypothesis concerning the nature of environmental objects
is my own (7, 8, 9). In a series of articles, I have elaborated the hypothe-
sis that red, sweet, salt, emotion, books, trees, and storms are all cases of
a particular stimulus-response relationship. This particular bit of behav-
ior is the irreversible SP-LR relationship. (The letters stand for sensory
process and language response.) The present chapter is hardly the place
to offer a resume of these papers. It will perhaps be worth our while,
however, to give a brief explanation of the hypothesis inasmuch as it bears
specifically upon our present problem, the subject-matter of the science of
psychology and anthroponomy, as well as upon the problem of the nature
of the methods used in these disciplines.
Let us apply our hypothesis to the case where new environmental objects
make their appearance as this occurs when hitherto undifferentiated over-
tones of a clang are "reported" by the subject. "The beginner in the
psychology laboratory does not hear these overtones, although physics can
demonstrate that correlated vibrations exist in the stimulus. The subject
is not 'conscious' of the tones, — at least he makes no verbal report of their
288 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
presence and for scientific purposes he is said to be unaware of them. The;
experimenter now presents the vibration frequency of the first overtone!
(SP) by itself. This stimulus elicits response LR. SP is then presented asj
a part of a complex stimulus in order to see whether or not the same re-
sponse, LR, will now appear. If it does not, the training is continued. Justl
as soon as the verbal response, LR, is made to the complex stimulus, just so]
soon does the subjectivist say that the 'consciousness of the overtone' is\
present Why do we not say that LR is the subjectivist's 'conscious-
ness' and not merely a criterion of its presence? Because LR, if it is to be
rated as 'conscious,' must in its turn have a language response conditioned
to it and so be the beginning part of [an SP-LR] situation. Only in the
irreversible situation do we have 'consciousness.' It now becomes a fer-
tile field of experimentation to determine what stimulus aspects may be
determiners of language responses and not merely of non-language re-
sponses. The irreversible relationships between these stimulus aspects and
the language responses will be the 'states of consciousness.'
"We have chosen the two cases of the lower limen of sensitivity and the
discrimination of component aspects of a complex situation, as the most
vital aspects of adult human nature upon which to base our formation, for
a very definite reason. If it were possible we should follow the truly
genetic method in the establishment of our thesis as well as in its applica-
tion. There are, however, no well established facts concerning the 'con-
sciousness' of infants and children, so that we must of necessity test our
conception upon adults. When, however, we examine that situation at
this age level, it is found that the phenomenon termed 'consciousness,'
although very generally conceded to exist, is very complex and has a long
history in the individual's lifetime. We must therefore select for analysis
the most definite, least ambiguous, and most experimentally inviting of the
instances where 'consciousness' is extended or where new 'consciousness'
arises. Having arrived at our formulation upon this basis, its adequacy —
and, therefore, its truth — can be tested by examining its harmony with
certain accepted data gathered from adults, children, and infra-human ani-
mals and by observing the extent and vitality of the experimental implica-
tions of the conception.
"In the two fundamental cases of conscious limen with which we have
dealt, nothing has been found which does not come under our formulation.
These cases, while convincing, may nevertheless not be thought crucial.
If so, then the critical case for the formulation is the following: Can a
receptor which does not normally condition 'consciousness' be made to do
so? Stated from our point of view as a matter for scientific verification:
Can activity in a receptor which does not normally condition a language
response be made to do so by training? To be sure we have almost shown
that this is possible to a limited degree, for the so-called subliminal receptor
activities do not normally condition language activities. Perhaps the really
crucial case comes with receptors all of whose activities psychology now
treats as permanently subliminal to 'consciousness.' Can the receptors in
the viscera which do not condition 'sensation' be made to do so by training?
Only positive results can be crucial, for the everyday training of the subject
WALTER S. HUNTER 289
may have resulted in connecting with language responses all of the different
kinds of receptors which it is possible to connect. All that training may be
able to do may be of the order discussed above. This, however, is a matter
for experiment and not for theory to decide" (7, pp. 15-17).
Such are the anthroponomists' hypotheses concerning the nature of envir-
onmental objects, hypotheses which are mutually supporting and not antag-
onistic one to the other. Let us turn now to a consideration of the subject-
matter of the science as this problem concerns the classification of the
sciences of psychology and anthroponomy, on the one hand, and the sciences
of physics, chemistry, mathematics, and biology, on the other hand.
I have said that the environmental object selected for study by the an-
throponomist is man. And yet the anthroponomist does not attempt to
study all phases of man. Anthroponomy is the science of the behavior of
the human organism as a whole. The problems of this science necessarily
cover a wide range. Some are shared with the related sciences of anthro-
pology, sociology, physiology, neurology, physics, chemistry, and mathe-
matics, while other problems are studied little if at all outside of anthro-
ponomy. Anthroponomy thus takes its place among the sciences which
study specific objects in the environment. Here also belong such disci-
plines as botany, which studies plants, geology, which specializes upon the
inorganic structure of the earth, and physiology, where the functional
activities of the various structures of the body become the subject-matter
for investigation. In contrast to this group of sciences, which is character-
ized by the study of specific environmental objects, stands the group spe-
cializing upon those fundamental and general characteristics which are
thought to be essential to all environmental objects. Here belong at pres-
ent only mathematics, physics, and chemistry. Chemistry and physics an-
alyze, synthesize, weigh, and measure men, rats, rocks, gases, light, and
other objects in search of the fundamental general properties of nature.
Mathematics seeks to write formulae for all processes whether they occur
in the rat or in light. The science of anthroponomy, we have said, belongs
in the group with geology, botany, and the other specific sciences. Man's
learned behavior, his language responses, and his social activities are events
in nature, in the environment, and as such they are partially illuminated
by the general laws of mathematics, physics, and chemistry. This il-
lumination, to be sure, is less than is desirable, but this is true in the relation
pf each science of organic processes to the group of general sciences.
I think we can now see the purport of those hypotheses concerning the
nature of the environment which the students of human behavior have
offered. Weiss's statement that such objects as white rats, red covsrs,
tones, pains, and marital behavior are electron-proton combinations is
merely the recognition that, if the contemporary general sciences of mathe-
matics, physics, and chemistry are correct, we may ultimately write the
results of anthroponomy in terms of mathematical formulae. Lashley's
hypothesis and my own deal less with the future and more with the present.
They, therefore, seek to state environmental happenings in relation to
man's action system when this latter is viewed as another object in the
common-sense environment.
290 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930 ■
Let us now return to the subject of psychology and see where its adher-
ents would place it in relation to the other sciences. Titchener says that
psychology and physics deal with the same world of experience, but from
two very different points of view- Psychology studies the world with man
left in it, i.e., it studies experience as dependent upon the nervous system,
whereas physics studies experience as though existing independently of the
nervous system. Psychology should, therefore, be classified with the gen-
eral sciences as a discipline laying bare the general traits of mind, where
mind is defined as "the sum-total of human experience considered as de-
pendent upon a nervous system" (13, p. 16). The reasonable aspect of
this statement seems to me to come from the tacit recognition of the
stimulus-response relationship which exists between the total environment
and the human organism. If we substitute the term environment for ex-
perience, the statement then reads: psychology studies the total environ-
ment viewed as existing only at the moment when it affects the (human)
nervous system, whereas physics studies the total environment viewed as
existing beyond the moment when it affects the (human) nervous sys-
tem. Such a revised statement is less philosophical than Titchener's, but
it is still unacceptable because of the implication that human nature should
be studied not directly but indirectly through an analysis of the environ-
ment. What Titchener means, however, by "dependent upon the ner-
vous system" is something quite subtle and not at all the crude fact that
practically all relations between man and his environment ("experience")
are mediated by a nervous system. This is where the concept of "con-
scious" processes slips into his psychology. "Experience viewed as depend-
ent upon a nervous system" means, in fact, for him experience as observed
and as conscious. As Titchener says : "We assume that everybody knows,
at first hand, what human experience is, and we then seek to mark off the
two aspects of this experience which are dealt with respectively by physics
and psychology. Any further definition of the subject-matter of psychol-
ogy is impossible. Unless one knows, by experience itself, what experience
is, one can no more give a meaning to the term 'mind' than a stone can
give a meaning to the term 'matter' " (13, p. 9).
Let us turn now to the second problem which we are to consider : What
are the chief methods employed by the two sciences? Psychology has two
methods of gathering data. One is individualistic, and the other is social.
One is held to be less, and the other more scientifically fruitful. The first,
or individualistic, method is utilized whenever one person undertakes to
observe experience and build a science upon these observations. This
method has given rise to the old armchair variety of psychology, and yet
the method has never been repudiated. In speaking of the method. Calkins
writes: "The method has obvious advantages. It makes no especial con-
ditions of time and place ; it requires no mechanical adjunct ; it demands
no difficult search for suitable material ; at any moment, in all surroundings,
with no external outfit, one may study the rich material provided by every
imaginable experience. In an extreme sense, all is grist that comes to the
psychologist's mill." That the method has not been repudiated is due to
WALTER S. HUNTER 291
the fact that the data gathered by it form the basis for the interpretation of
the results secured by the social method.
The individual method in psychology is usually introspection. Although
all psychologists use introspection in the psychological part of their work,
very few have attempted to explain in detail what it is and what its limita-
tions are. For a psychological discussion of the problem the reader is
referred to papers by Dunlap (5), Dodge (4), and Titchener (14, 15, 16).
In these papers, as elsewhere, it is perfectly evident that the term intro-
spection has no valid meaning except as a designation for a method of
studying, analyzing, and describing conscious processes, or what is called
immediate experience. If there are no mental states, if the world of reds,
greens, pains, and hungers is not mental, then the term introspection has
no meaning that the term observation does not have. When I reject both
consciousness and introspection, as Washburn (17, p. 89) says the behavior-
ist does, I do so because no one has ever proved, or given me clear reasons
why I should believe, that the inner and outer environments of man are
mental.
Washburn urges the behaviorist to utilize the basic stimulus-response
mechanism involved in what the psychologist has called introspection.
And I (9) have also given an analysis indicating how one student of
behavior takes what seems valid in the psychologist's method and relates it
to the larger phenomenon of the subject's report. Psychologists still say,
however, that the student of behavior implicitly assumes and uses con-
sciousness whenever he makes an observation. To watch a rat run a
maze, it is said, requires consciousness on the part of the one doing the
watching. My answer to the psychologist is as follows: {a) No one has
ever shown that the rat, its whiteness, or its movement is in any way men-
tal. Therefore when I observe the rat in the maze, I am not observing a
mental state or a mental experience, {b) The only relationships which
exist between the observer and the rat are relationships of stimulus and
response. The rat in running the maze stimulates the observer who makes
such response as counting errors, recording time, or speaking words. When
the experimenter-observer behaves in any of these ways by giving the
responses which are conventional in the laboratory (or in any other situa-
tion that might be involved ) , he is observing. No mental, psychic processes
have ever been demonstrated in this situation, although their existence has
often been asserted. If a second observer observes the first observer, again
the only relationship between the two is one of stimulus and response.
We may extend the series of observers infinitely without finding a reason-
able excuse for introducing a mental factor. Each observer is confronted
by certain stimuli and responds to these stimuli. This stimulus-response
situation is the phenomenon of observation. So if a baby follows a moving
light with its eyes, it is said to observe the light. If a dog pricks up his
ears when a sound occurs, the dog is said to observe the sound. However,
the term scientific observation is applied not to all responses made to
stimuli but only to certain highly conventional verbal and manual responses
which can leave a permanent record or which have a value in the inter-
stimulation and response of discussion among scientific men.
292 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
HolHngworth (6, p. 96) has suggested that the difference between an-
throponomy and psychology is due to the sensuous bias of the adherents of
the two sciences. The psychologists are chiefly interoceptive, and the
anthroponomists, chiefly exteroceptive. Hollingworth says that contrasted
with the bias of the psychologist "is that of the exteroceptist. He is more
commonly called a behaviorist, and his passion is all for vision. According
to this school, as I understand it, the only objects comprising the world are
visual in nature. Hence visual observation, direct or indirect, is the only
method to be utilized in science. If other than visual objects do perhaps
exist, they are at least to be studied only through their visual manifestations
or through correlated visual phenomena. Only with reluctance is occa-
sional permission given to take advantage of auditory observation, as in
the noting of cries on the part of lower animals, or the speech reports of
man. But the account of all objects in the lower sensory modes is rigor-
ously excluded from psychology." This statement, it seems to me, mis-
conceives the anthroponomist's problem, which is the study of behavior and ;
not the description of the remaining world of objects. Physics, chemistry, !
and other sciences are quite competent to describe that world. The anthro-
ponomist in no sense limits the stimuli which he gives his subjects to those
of vision. He studies the responses of animals to all kinds and combina-
tions of stimuli. However, the anthroponomist in observing his subjects
during an experiment does depend very largely upon his own eyes, although
he may verify by audition or olfaction the presence of an auditory or an
olfactory stimulus if one of these is being applied to his subject. This
dependence of the anthroponomist upon vision during his observations
corresponds to what is found in all sciences and arises from the excellence
of visual stimuli in determining that type of response which is called
scientific description. There is no a priori reason why the anthropono-
mist should not attempt to record, for example, maze errors or times on the
basis of auditory stimuli received from the subject who is in the maze.
The experimenter's olfactory receptor might even be used as a determiner
of this observational response. There is, however, no reason why he
should be forced to develop such a technique when a perfectly satisfactory
one is already available in terms of the visually determined habits which
the experimenter has already developed in common with other scientific
men. If the subject, whose behavior is being studied, produces sounds,
odors, or temperatures by his behavior, the experimenter may have his
observational behavior aroused by those stimuli, although the results would
probably be more accurately recorded by some mechanical device which
could be affected by the stimuli in question. In this case the observational
behavior of the experimenter would be released directly by stimuli, prob-
ably visual, from the recording device.
The second, or social, method of psychology is utilized wherever an
experimenter utilizes subjects other than himself. Let me illustrate this
method in a simple way. First, I take one blue paper disc and one black
paper disc These I mount upon the spindle of a rotating wheel in the
proportion of three blue to one black. The wheel is set in rapid rotation,
WALTER S. HUNTER 293
and my subjects are called in one at a time. I point to the discs and
say, "What color quality is that?" Each subject responds in turn. "A
dark, poorly saturated blue." If I change the proportion of blue and
black, my subjects respond differently. These are the observable facts
upon which both psychologists and anthroponomists can agree, and yet
notice how different are the interpretations placed upon these facts. The
anthroponomist says in a very matter-of-fact way, "It looks as though the
behavior of your subjects was controlled by a change in the visual stimulus,
when your instructions remained constant. This suggests to me that
man reacts to blue light of various intensities. It might now be well to
state the visual stimulus in physical terms of wave-length and energy in
order that we may know more exactly just what the visual stimulus is
and thereby help some one else in his efforts to repeat our observation."
The psychologist interprets the experiment as follows: "Each subject has
an immediate experience of color quality, intensity, and saturation. This
inference is justified because we are all men and because I know that under
the same conditions I have these experiences and use the same words to
describe them. Let us by all means get the physical measurements sug-
gested in order that later observers may be certain to get this experience."
This interpretation by the psychologist makes us more certain than ever
that the task which he has undertaken is that of describing the total envi-
ronment as it appears to man and not that of describing some fundamental
aspect of man himself.
The science of psychology is built upon inferences concerning the envi-
ronment. These inferences are drawn from the observable facts gathered
by the social method of that science. Against this method, and, therefore,
against this science, I raise these objections: (a) An unnecessary and an
impossible task is undertaken in attempting to reconstruct the environment
as it appears to adult man, to children, and to animals, (b) The genetic
point of approach, which has already proved valuable in understanding
nature, requires that our investigation of man begin with the simpler
stimulus-response problems and extend to the more complex ones later when
we have mastered our technique, (c) The psychologist, as psychologist,
limits himself to observing the language responses of his subjects because this
behavior is bound up so closely with the discriminable aspects of the en-
vironment. These language responses are admittedly late in appearance in
the animal world, and yet the psychologist utilizes the language responses of
adult members of European cultures in his hypothetical reconstruction of the
environment not only of man but of all animals. By thus limiting himself
to the language situation, the psychologist omits much that is valuable in
understanding both man and the environment. (d) The psychologist
persistently violates one of the great canons of science when he fails to har-
monize his problem to be investigated with the methods to be employed.
This last point I consider of the very greatest importance. I must,
therefore, comment upon it at some length. Let us revert, first, to the
experiment with the blue and the black discs. The psychological problem
is this: How does the experience of blueness change with the alteration of
294 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
the relative proportions of blue and black on the color wheel? The exper-
imental method involves stimulating the subject auditorily w^ith instructions
and visually vi^ith the colored discs. The subject's behavior, called in this
case his report, is then recorded. The psychologist drav^^s his conclusions .|
in terms of experience ^ whereas I submit that the only conclusion justified is'
that the subject behaves in a certain manner when stimulated in a certain i
way.
FIGURE 1
We may again illustrate the criticism by an experiment as conducted by
the Gestalt psychologists. The problem is: How does the subject see the
lines of Figure 1 ? The method of solving this apparently simple problem
is as before. The subject is brought into the room. His eyes are stimu-
lated with the lines of Figure 1, and he is given auditory instructions.
As a result the subject says, "I see four groups of two lines each. At one
moment the line on the right stands alone, and at another moment the line
on the left is without a partner." The Gestalt psychologist now concludes
that the subject has an experience of groups, or of figure and ground. The
behaviorist would say that, when stimulated in this manner, the subject re-
sponds in at least two different ways. [In my Human Behavior (11, Pt. H,
Chap. 4, and also pp. 318-322) I have presented the treatment given by
anthroponomy to problems of this type.] In neither of these experiments,
however, would the behaviorist rest content with formulating his problem
merely in such a manner that the method available would bear upon the
problem formulated- In each case he would further insist upon checking
up his results using some other form of behavior than the verbal response
of the subject.
Suppose we turn now from the external to the internal environment.
Let the psychologist again state his problem. This time it will be as
follows: What is the influence of the simple affective processes upon the
knee-jerk? (2). (Or the problem might have been, how many affective
qualities are there? In this case, the method would differ from what we
are about to describe, but the same type of criticism would be applicable.)
WALTER S. HUNTER 295
I The method selected involves the use of an apparatus for eliciting the
knee-jerk and of certain "indifferent, pleasant, and unpleasant" words.
When the subject's eyes are stimulated by the words and when he is
stimulated auditorily in the proper way, he says, "Pleasant." We now
proceed to apply the visual stimuli simultaneously with the tap on the
patellar tendon. The results recorded indicate the magnitude of the
knee-jerk under the several conditions. The psychologist thereupon con-
cludes that pleasantness and unpleasantness did or did not affect the re-
sponse in question.
Had a student of behavior used this method, the problem would have
been formulated directly in terms of the method as follows: What is
the influence of visual word-stimuli upon the patellar tendon reflex under
such and such conditions? The fundamental error in the psychologist's
procedure is that the problems formulated and the conclusions drawn can
have no real bearing upon the methods employed and the results secured,
since the psychologist takes as his general problem the reconstruction of his
subject's environment and not the study of his behavior. When problems
are formulated in terms of available methods, the scientist is much less
prone to spend his energies in the fruitless effort to solye problems which
at the present moment lie far beyond the best available technique. The
student of behavior is not altogether guiltless here, for occasionally he
also formulates problems which are quite unrelated to the methods em-
ployed in their solution. The difference between such a mistake on the
part of an anthroponomist and a simliar mistake made by a psychologist
lies in the fact that, by the definition of the subject-matter and goal of
his science, the psychologist is forever committed to this error, while in
the case of the anthroponomist only a momentary lapse from rigid scientific
method has occurred.
In the description and criticism of the psychologist's methods, we have
by implication given many of the characteristics of the methods used by
the anthroponomist. It is only fitting and proper, however, that we should
describe certain characteristics of these methods more in detail. As in
psychology, so in anthroponomy, chief reliance is placed upon the social
method as a method of gathering data. The anthroponomist will at times
work upon himself as subject, but he appreciates the great difficulty of
controlling and checking many factors which influence behavior where the
subject and the experimenter are one, and he absolutely refuses to use this
individualistic method as the basis for interpreting the results of his scien-
tific labors. The methods of the anthroponomist always involve the pre-
sentation of stimuli and the consequent- arousal of behavior in the subject.
Sometimes one stimulus is emphasized in the experimental situation so that
this stimulus finally may be said to control the behavior. Sometimes the
subject is merely placed in a general environmental situation and his behav-
ior observed. So far as is practical, the specific stimuli which determine
the behavior are recorded, and the experimenter notes what seem to him to
be the important aspects of the response. Where the conclusion is drawn
that the red stimulus, in a red-green discrimination experiment, e.g., con-
trols the behavior, there is no implication that the red stimulus is effective
296 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
by itself. Many other stimuli are cooperating, particularly stimuli from
the stomach of the hungry subject and stimuli from the muscles and skin.
The conclusion, in reality, is that, under these experimental conditions
where the stimuli from the skin, muscles, viscera, ears, etc., are kept
constant^ the deciding factor in controlling the response is the wave-length
difference between the two visual stimuli. To be sure, there are config-
urations of stimuli at work and the organism does act as a whole, but under
the conditions of the experiment described, the most significant conclusion
to be drawn refers to the stimulus which plays the deciding role.
Wherever it can be shown that the subject's behavior is controlled by a
particular grouping of stimuli, that conclusion should be drawn. Any
other use of the Gestalt concept seems unnecessary.
This brief discussion of the stimulus-response nature of behavioristic
experiments leads me to state three further points: {a) The psychologist
conducts exactly similar experiments, but he is so engrossed in his effort to
reconstruct the subject's environment and so hypnotized by the significance
of language behavior that he slurs over the essential character of the
observed facts in his desire to attain the goal which he has set himself. If
Burtt and Tuttle, for example, had realized that, in dealing with their
so-called affective processes, they were dealing with a bit of behavior, the
first step that would have been taken would have been to assure them-
selves that this particular bit of (visceral?) behavior was present. Having
shown its presence as a result of the word stimuli, they could then have
studied the facilitory and inhibitory relations between this behavior and
the knee-jerk. {b) Some psychologists have said that the behavior ist,
when he uses the stimulus-response concept, ignores the contribution which
the organism makes to the nature of the behavior. This seems to me to
be a remarkably uncalled-for accusation. Has not the behaviorist always
appealed to the results of heredity and previous training as factors which
cooperate with present stimuli in determining behavior? Was there ever
a behaviorist who explained maze behavior without calling upon the re-
tained effects of a previous training for a part of his explanation, or a behav-
iorist who ignored childhood peculiarities in accounting for adult behavior?
(c) The third point concerns the psychologist's criticism of the behavior-
ist's use of the stimulus-response category. By what right, so the criticism
goes, does the anthroponomist say, "I used a red light as the stimulus," or
"I trained the subject using a cube and a sphere as stimuli." Since the
behaviorist accepts the theories of physics and chemistry as adequate for
the explanation of nature, it is said that all stimuli should be stated by him
in terms of these sciences. This criticism ignores the fact that the behav-
iorist, like the physicist, accepts a common-sense view of the environment
as the milieu for his experimentation. This we have been at great pains
to point out earlier in the present chapter. The anthroponomist has no
more hesitancy in saying that he gave water to his chicks in order to see
whether they would drink than a chemist has in saying that he has com-
pleted the analysis of water into H2O. The chemist does not find it
necessary to drop the word water and substitute for it some electron-proton
term. Wherever the situation demands that the wave-lengths of light, the
WALTER S. HUNTER 297
vibration frequencies of sound, and the chemical constituents of odorous sub-
stances be stated, the anthroponomist meets the demand, but not otherwise.
As anthroponomy advances to ever more and more rigorous experimenta-
tion, it is to be expected that such specifications of the stimuli and of
the organic conditions vi^ill occur more and more frequently. Until that
time, let us proceed in a matter-of-fact way, suiting our specifications to the
practical needs of the moment.
We shall limit ourselves in the remainder of our discussion to a brief
statement concerning the third problem formulated above, "What are the
results of the science?" With reference to anthroponomy it need only be
said that the results secured bear directly upon the fundamentals of human
behavior. The anthroponomist himself specializes more upon language
behavior, learned responses, and the facts of interstimulation and response
than any other scientist, and in addition he cooperates with others in the
study of various additional aspects of man in so far as these afFect organic
behavior. All of these results are possible without omitting from the
resulting picture of human nature any observable and verifiable datum.
The anthroponomist even goes further and offers various hypotheses con-
cerning the nature of the inner and outer environments as these are re-
ported by his subjects. Nowhere is it necessary to introduce the concept
of consciousness, or experience, conceived as another mode of existence, or
as another aspect of the physical world. Nowhere does the anthropono-
mist study the subject's environment except as a possible source of stimuli
for the subject's behavior.
The psychologist thinks that he secures two types of results, one he
assumes concerns consciousness, or experience, and the other we all agree
is behavior. The behavioristic results of the Wundtians have been deplor-
ably slight in amount when one considers that most of their experiments
have involved stimulus-response situations in a subject other than the
experimenter. The adherents of biological functionalism have been more
fortunate in their results in spite of their theory that mind is an instrument
of adjustment in the struggle for existence. This outcome of their work
has been possible because their systematic point of view has encouraged the
direct study of man. It is only to be regretted that they have mixed up
experience and behavior so thoroughly that the conclusions which they
have drawn from their experimental work must in many cases be rejected,
and in many cases the work must be repeated with the problems reformu-
lated in harmony with the accumulated results of anthroponomy. No
combination of "experience" and behavior is necessary or possible in the
accurate portrayal of human nature. If we consider the results secured
by the most consistent and logical students of (so-called) consciousness,
the followers of the Wundtian tradition, we see that these results (so far
as they concern psychology and not behavior) consist of a vast array of
least discriminable aspects of experience, blueness, tonality, contact, pain,
sweet, noisiness, intensity, clearness, duration, and others.
When we turn to the work of Gestalt psychologists, we find that experi-
mental results are stated in terms of unique configurations and not in
terms of the abstract and highly artificial products of the Wundtian
298 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
school. This is an advantage to the extent that new aspects of the en-
vironment are discovered, an advantage, i.e., if we think that the way
to understand man is through a study of the environment. As yet the
Gestalt movement has not worked far enough into the problems of sys-
tematic psj^chology to reveal just how it will treat these problems of
general theory. The movement so far has been limited largely to the
field of "perception" and to an elaboration of the concept of the organism
as a whole- Sooner or later, however, it must face the many other prob-
lems of classical psychology, as these appear in such questions as the
natures and interrelations of "perception," "imagination," "affection,"
"attention," and "thinking." I can see no evidence as yet which would
lead me to believe that Gestalt psj^chology as a science of "experience" will
escape many of the culs-de-sac into which the psychology of discriminable
aspects of experience has fallen. After all, a Gestalt is merely another
unique but more complex aspect of the environment. And it will be just
as difficult for the adherents of that point of view to classify and synthe-
size unique Gestalten as for their opponents to synthesize unique elements
or unique least discriminable aspects of the universe.
It is sometimes said by Gestalt psychologists that the chief result to be
obtained by their method of approach to psychology is an insight into the
neural processes of man and that the study of Gestalten is merely a means
to this end. Kohler in particular has emphasized this, and he has in addi-
tion sought in a brilliant way to apply the principles of physics to the
problems of neural processes. There is much, therefore, in Kohler's psy-
chology which is in harmony with Loeb's tradition in biology and with
Weiss's theories in anthroponomy. And yet, in spite of this, I cannot
react optimistically toward such a program for two reasons: (a) Ever
since the days of Wundt's physiological psychology, the students of psy-
chology have sought neural correlates for complex as well as for simple
experiences with little or no success. On what grounds, therefore, are
we to expect better success from the attempt when made by the Gestalt
psychologists? To be sure they will propose theoretical neural functions
different from the ones proposed by the Wundtians. So much is certain, I
because the Gestalt psychologists are seeking neural correlates for Gestalten
and not for the least discriminable aspects of experience, (b) My second
reason for pessimism with reference to the attempt to dissect neural func-
tions by means of environmental studies is the same as my reason for
rejecting a science which studies human nature by means of analyses of
the environment. Why all this indirectness? If one wishes to study
neural functions, why not study them directly? Why not begin where
the physiologist has left off and carry on from that point? The work of
Lashley and Coghill will throw more light on neural functions than fifty
years of speculation by the Gestalt psychologists added to the fifty past
years of Wundtian speculation, because Lashley and Coghill are attacking
their problems directly and in the light of the present status of the sciences
dealing with that problem. // the Gestalt psychologists are able to formu-
late a hypothesis which will be valuable in the understanding of neural
function, it will be a result of the stimulus-response data which they will
WALTER S. HUNTER 299
inevitably accumulate in their studies and not a result of the experiential
hypothesis with which they, like the Wundtians, burden their use of the
social method of investigation.
Here at the close of our discussion the reader, particularly if he is not
an anthroponomist, may wonder why it is not possible, or practical, to
have both the science of psychology and that of anthroponomy, and he
may wonder why the adherents of the two sciences find it necessary to dis-
pute so much with each other. Physiologists are not carrying on contro-
versies either with psychologists or with anthroponomists, and it may seem
strange that each of the latter two groups cannot go its way in peace-^
There is no prospect that the anthroponomist will ever accept the psy-
chologist's viewpoint. No compromise is possible, however much it may
be desired, because {a) the admission of a little mentalism is as erroneous
as the admission of all of mentalism; and {b) a little psychology and a
little anthroponomy when added together no more make a science than does
the addition of, let us say, a little ethics and a little geology.
I think there are three important reasons for these controversies, and
the last reason is fundamental, {a) The first reason is social in character.
Both groups of scientists are classified academically as psychologists. Both
belong to the same learned societies. Both teach the same research stu-
dents. There is thus no practical way to avoid a constant clash in the
scientific, not the personal, field, {b) The second reason concerns the
problems studied. Many of these problems are purely behavioristic in
nature and are investigated by men in both sciences. Such problems are
those of learning, work, interstimulation and response, sensory function,
language responses, and abnormal human behavior. This great over-
lapping of the work carried on by men in the two fields constantly throws
into relief the fundamental differences in interpretation which exist be-
tween psychologists and anthroponomists. (c) The third reason con-
cerns philosophy. Psychology, as psychology, has no subject-matter for
study except as the assumption is made that certain objects or aspects of
objects in the world are mental, psychic, or except as the assumption is
made that the world contains psychic agencies which play a role in nature.
Psychology, as psychology, thus owes its existence and the delimitation of
its field to the acceptance of a philosophy of mental monism or of mental-
physical dualism. If mental experiences and psychic agencies are not mat-
ters of assumption but of observation, it is strange that the anthroponomist
is neither able to observe them nor to find in his experimental results any
evidence of their presence. Anthroponomy, in contrast with psychology,
does not have the limitations of its field set by philosophy. I would go
further and insist that anthroponomy is based upon no philosophical point
of view. It is true that when behaviorists indulge in metaphysics they
usually champion the view of materialistic monism, but they might as well
defend mental monism, since in a monism there is no essential difference
between the two. An experimentalist could hardly champion a mental-
'It should be noted that the psychologist, at least the experimental psychologist,
is not at peace even with himself, for he too sees the inevitable conflict between
his proper rafntalistic work and his added behavioristic work!
r
300 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
physical dualism unless he were prepared to show in his experiments the^
reality of such a dualism. This demonstration has never been made- ■ The i
fundamental position of the anthroponomist is that everything that can i
be shown to be present in or to influence human behavior will be dealt
with by his science or by some other science of the organism if the be-
havior, for example, digestion, lies outside the field of anthroponomy. Ifj
the professional or the amateur philosopher wishes to take the results of
anthroponomical experimentation and talk about their philosophical sig-
nificance, no one can stop him. Indeed some good for philosophy might \
result. I confess to a reasonably intimate acquaintance with philosophy
and with the historical outgrowth of psychology from philosophy, and I
feel no hesitancy in asserting that anthroponomy has no more contact
with philosophy than has chemistry or geology.
REFERENCES
1. Bentley, M. The field of psychology. New York: Appleton, 1924. Pp. xvi l'
+ 545.
2. BURTT, H. E., & TuTTLE, W. W. The patellar tendon reflex and affective
tone. Amer. J. Psychol, 1925, 36, 553-561.
3. Carr, H. a. Some novel experiences. Psychol. Rev., 1912, 19, 60-65.
4. Dodge, R. The theory and limits of introspection. Amer. J. Psychol., 1912, 23,
214-229.
5. DUNLAP, K. The case against introspection. Psychol. Rev., 1912, 19, 404-413.
6. HoLLiNGWORTH, H. L. Sensuous determinants of psychological attitude. Psy-
chol. Rev., 1928, 35, 93-117.
7. Hunter, W. S. The problem of consciousness. Psychol. Rev., 1924, 31, 1-31.
8. . The symbolic process. Psychol. Rev., 1924, 31, 478-497.
9. . The subject's report. Psychol. Rev., 1925, 32, 153-170.
10. . General anthroponomy and its systematic problems. Amer. J.
Psychol., 1925, 36, 286-302.
11. . Human behavior. Chicago: Univ. Chicago Press, 1928. Pp.
x+355.
12. Lashley, K. S. The behavioristic interpretation of consciousness. I & H.
Psychol. Rev., 1923, 30, 237-272; 329-353.
13. TiTCHENER, E. B. A textbook of psychology. New York: Macmillan, 1910.
Pp. vii+565.
14. . Description vs. statement of meaning. Amer. J. Psychol., 1912,
23, 165-182.
15. . Prolegomena to a study of introspection. Amer. J. Psychol.,
1912, 23, 427-448.
16. . Schema of introspection. Amer. J. Psychol, 1912, 23, 485-508.
17. Washburn, M. F. Introspection as an objective method. Psychol Rev.,
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R. G. Adams, 1929. Pp. 479.
CHAPTER 15
THE BIOSOCIAL STANDPOINT IN
PSYCHOLOGY
Albert P. Weiss
Ohio State University
Definition. Simply stated, psychology studies how the behavior of the
newborn infant becomes the behavior of the mature adult. More speci-
fically, psychology is the science which studies the changes in the sensori-
motor and environmental conditions by which the newborn infant (re-
garded as a biological organism) becomes the mature adult who partici-
pates in those activities which make up human civilization.-^
The Newborn Infant
The properties of the newborn infant are those given by the biological
sciences to the extent that they are descriptions of morphological and func-
tional properties based on anatomy, physiology, biochemistry, biophysics,
chemistry, physics.
This specifically excludes a superphysical or "vital" principle, and it
implies that the only forces that are operative in changing infantile be-
havior to adult behavior are inheritance, the physical and social environ-
ment, and the bodily changes that are the progressive effects of sensori-
motor function.
Elements in Human Behavior
The mature adult is an organism that has acquired those movements
which make up the personal, domestic, public, vocational, and recreational
activities of the community of which he is a member.
The observation and study of human behavior is reduced to a descrip-
tion of (a) biophysical stimuli, (b) biophysical reactions, (c) biosocial
stimuli, (d) biosocial responses. It is assumed that any action which the
individual performs is adequately explained when the genetic and phylo-
genetic interrelationships of these elements are described. A mental factor
is excluded because there is no justification for assuming that during the
change from infancy to maturity any other forces are operative than those
described by the natural sciences.
The Biophysical Stimulus. This is any form of energy which produces
function in a sense-organ or receptive tissue. Description and measurement
are in the units of the physicist, chemist, or physiologist. The classes of
^The more detailed development of this point of view is given in the writer's
book: A theoretical basis of human behavior, (2nd ed.) Columbia, Ohio: R. G.
Adams, 1929.
[301]
302 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
biophysical stimuli are visual, auditory, tactual, temperature, pain, gusta-
tory, olfactory, kinaesthetic, organic, static (vestibular), vibratory. These
classes represent a historical classification which is useful but vrhich can
be further reduced to physical and chemical properties.
The biophysical stimulus ends when a chemical or physical change occurs
in a sense-organ or receptive tissue, and this in turn is transformed into
a nervous excitation or a nervous process which is the beginning of the
biophysical reaction. The distinction (between stimulus and reaction) is
purely arbitrary.
The Biophysical Reaction. This begins when the physical or chemical
changes in the sensory tissue are transformed into the nervous excitation
which is propagated through a network of sensory, connecting, and motor
neurons and ends in muscular contractions or glandular secretions of some
sort. These contractions and secretions may in turn produce other bio-
physical stimuli which act on kinaesthetic or organic receptors within the
body. The excitations from these may lead to movements which adjust
the body and its parts for manipulating and handling the object and regu-
lating the visceral reactions so that an appropriate energy supply is avail-
able for the muscles that are used in the manipulation.
A biophysical reaction is called a subreaction when it is so weak that
neither an outside observer nor the subject himself can describe the con-
tractile components. Sometimes the individual himself may be unable to
localize the effectors directly, but he may have acquired substitute reac-
tions through which he indicates to himself and others the nature of the
original stimulating conditions. These sub- and substitute reactions are
classified under the various subjective categories like sensations, imagery,
feeling, etc.
Even the simplest biophysical reaction, such as discriminating the taste
of an orange, is complicated with social stimuli that have already inter-
acted with the stimuli which act on the gustatory receptors so that it is
impossible for the adult to report how he learned to discriminate the taste.
For such discriminations as those of awareness, consciousness, memory,
perception, emotion, etc., the sensorimotor conditions are still more obscure.
The biophysical reactions in the adult represent the interactions of many
preceding stimulus conditions which the individual is unable to describe
in such a manner as to reveal the genesis of the subjective categories.
The biophysical reaction ends with the contraction of muscles or the
secretion of glands, and a complete description of any biophysical reaction
would be one which enumerated every muscle contraction. Practically, this
is impossible, but in describing human behavior names have already been
developed for grouping together many of the contractile and secretory ef-
fects into such categories as reaching, peeling, chewing, walking, inspecting,
speech, etc.
The Biosocial Stimulus. This is a biophysical stimulus which has be-
come a socialized substitute for other forms of stimulation. Its most
characteristic form is represented by language. Biosocial stimuli may be
ALBERT P. WEISS 303
names for objects, names for the relations between objects, names for par-
ticular groupings as in generalization or abstraction. Any object or event
which is socially important is given a name which becomes a substitute
stimulus for the objects or the events. In its origin the name of an object
is acquired as is any handling or manipulating reaction. It is only one
more reaction to a given set of stimuli. However, its biophysical character
is relatively unimportant, and any biosocial stimulus usually has a number
of different forms, oral, written, printed, different languages, etc. The
biosocial stimulus is independent of the objects and events for which it is
the symbol, is relatively permanent, and may be produced at any time.
Through grammar and syntax a very complex method (classification)
has been developed by which the reactions to many objects and many rela-
tions are brought together into stimulus combinations which are based on
social equivalences rather than upon physical resemblances. The limit
of this grouping is reached in mathematics where symbols are substituted
for relationships and through a special syntax (algebra) quantitative
stimuli are derived which are substitutes for conditions which have not yet
appeared (prediction) or which indicate relationships (generalizations)
which are not obvious from the mere inspection of objects and events.
The range of a biosocial stim.ulus is given when all linguistic combina-
tions into which a word may enter are described. An approach to this
limit would be a comprehensive treatise on the subject for which the bio-
social stimulus is the name. Such a treatise would give the different
"meanings" of the biosocial stimulus.
The Biosocial Response. Biosocial responses fall into two classes:
1) The biophysical reactions which produce a biosocial stimulus
(speech in all of its forms).
2) The biophysical reactions which produce the stimuli from
which the social status of the individual may be derived.
All biosocial responses are biophysical reactions, but the responses are
not classified according to the contractile effects (as in the biophysical re-
actions) but according to the responses in other individuals. The bio-
social response is acquired first as a supplementary reaction (as a verbo-
motor name), which is added to the manipulating and handling reactions
that are acquired at the same time. Through social interaction this name
becomes a response which is uniform for many individuals, however vari-
able their manipulating reactions may become.
Human Behavior
Human behavior is the totality of the biosocial response systems which
establish the individual's social status in the community of which he is a
member. In the order of complexity the actions of individuals pass through
simple movements, biophysical reactions, biosocial responses, temporary
response series (for various ages and conditions of life), permanent response
series (the career), the behavior life-history.
For scientific analysis and investigation, the behavior life-history of the
304 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
individual may be divided into five major categories: personal, domestic,
public, vocational, and recreational behavior.
Personal Behavior' In this class is placed the behavior which differen-
tiates one person from another. Personal habits in eating, dress, manner
of working, conversation ; personal responses to other individuals as affable,
loyal, emotional, optimistic, stolid, intelligent, cooperative, neurotic, melan-
choly, and what in general may be called the "personality" of the individual.
Domestic Behavior. This includes the responses which form part of
the activities in the family and intimate group life: protection against the
weather, preservation of health, treatment in sickness, preparation for food
and family recreation, training others or being trained for the participation
in the wider activities of adult social life. In general, domestic behavior
includes those responses which are made by the individual in his status as
father, mother, son, daughter, grandfather, grandmother, uncle, aunt, and
a gradually widening circle of relations.
Public Behavior. This class includes those responses through which the
social organization is maintained ; it includes those activities which form
an ever-widening interaction between the individuals of the group, state,
or federation, such as learning and obeying civic regulations, participating
in customs which characterize the community, paying rent, taxes, voting,
and those activities which maintain the political stability of the social
organization.
Vocational Behavior. This type of activity includes the responses
through which society as a whole maintains its industrial and economic
stability. Vocational behavior includes the trades, professions, and those
responses which form the basis of exchange with other individuals in main-
taining a specialization of labor that is directed toward increasing the
commodities and activities available for the individual, with a minimum
expenditure of time and energy.
Recreational Behavior. These responses represent the play activities
through which the individual develops variety in his behavior. Games,
sports, travel, amateur activities of all kinds, theater, concert, and the
many forms of expressing sociability.
These five classes are not mutually exclusive. What is vocational be-
havior for one individual may be recreational for another. However, in
any specific case it is not difHcult to describe the actual conditions, and
this is all that is necessary. The behavior life-history of the individual
is a continuous series of responses which are constantly changing. Any
given adult activity is the terminal of two series of antecedents: {a) an
ontogenetic series which traces backward to some infantile form of move-
ment; {b) a phylogenetic series which traces backward through the
social or institutional modifications to some primitive social form.
Human behavior as differentiated from animal behavior has the effect
of removing some of the limitations of disease and death; extending the
sensory range and enlarging the environment; compensating for faulty in-
heritance through education; reducing the time and energy required for
i
ALBERT P. WEISS 305
food, shelter, and protection ; extending the available energy and skill in
movement by mechanical power and machinery; using cooperative efForts
to limit competition and exploitation ; increasing the variability in behavior
in the direction of invention, and new forms of physical and social control.
Through the development of biosocial stimuli and biosocial responses human
behavior has become organized into social institutions concerned with the
production of food, clothing, shelter, medicine, storage, transportation, dis-
tribution, communication, the principles of personal, communal, and inter-
national exchange, invention, education, utilization of natural resources,
mechanical power, machinery, protection, pensions, insurance, vocational
organization, etc.
Language
The language responses seem to be the essential differentia between
human and infrahuman behavior- Speech is an acquired modification of the
sensorimotor mechanism of the same type as any other handling or mani-
pulating reaction. The fact that it originated as an oral form of behavior
involving the sensorimotor elements of the speech mechanism is largely
due to the fact that the vocal mechanism possesses superior stimulating
properties and a relative independence from other reactions.
Language is made up of the contractile effects of the muscles which
produce the sounds, signals, written or printed stimuli to which the in-
dividual responds (within certain limits) in the same way as to the original
objects and events for which the speech stimuli are substitutes. By this
process for each object and relation between objects, old or new, past or
present, there is available a substitute stimulus which may be stored in
books and libraries and made available to any individual. In effect this
gives human beings a double universe. The totality of the language re-
sponses and the language records approach a unit correlation between the
linguistic achievements of a group and all the changes in objects and rela-
tions between objects which have occurred, are occurring, and (as pre-
diction) are likely to occur in the future.
Biophysical versus Biosocial Equivalence
Language responses developed before anything was known of the sensori-
motor organization of the individual and before it was known that all of
human behavior was the product of sensorimotor function. As a result
the categories of human behavior are linguistically classified more on the
basis of individual and social survival than upon their relation to sensori-
motor function. However, many different sensorimotor functions may be
equivalent from the standpoint of survival. Thus the individual may
manifest benevolence in many ways, each of which is different as a sen-
sorimotor condition. "A kind word" may be used in one instance, the
giving of money in another, taking care of dependent members in another ;
even actual punishment under some conditions may be an act of benevolence.
From the sensorimotor standpoint these actions are all different, but be-
cause they have the same biosocial effect they may be classified as having
the type of equivalence which is indicated by the term benevolence.
306 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
In investigating human behavior both the individual sensorimotor and
the social categories must be considered. In building up new habits the
sensorimotor components are the more important; in establishing the social
status of the individual the social component is the more important.
Sensorimotor Interchangeability
Sensorimotor interchangeability is a relationship in which the sense-
organs or muscles of one individual are used by another. This relation
approaches a limit in which all individuals (dead or alive) are united into
a single sensorimotor system. Through language responses a functional
continuity is established from one individual to another, from one genera-
tion to the next, and between communities separated by great distances.
A form of cooperative behavior arises which approaches a condition in
which the natural resources (organic and inorganic) of the earth, the
specific inheritance and specific abilities of any one individual, are at the
disposal of all other individuals. Through sensorimotor interchangeability
there is developed the specifically human achievement called civilization.
BiosociAL versus Mentalistic Psychology
The difference between the mentalistic and the biosocial point of view
is that mentalism assumes that human achievement may be studied as the
product of some uniform entity such as mind- It has been assumed that
the properties of the mind were the key to the control and the modification
of human behavior. The problem is not so simple. Even when mind is
defined in a relatively clear manner, as the totality of the sensations,
images, feelings, perceptions, conations, meanings, thoughts, experiences,
consciousness, etc., which an individual may have, an experimental analysis
of these categories seems to represent only a small fraction of the whole
set of conditions through which the individual becomes a participating unit
in a social organization. This fraction is an important one because through
its investigation we learn more about sensorimotor function, which after
all is the basis of social interaction. However, the traditional psychological
experiment was not based upon the assumption that it was investigating
sensorimotor function but that it was investigating the properties of a
hypothetical mind.
In the biosocial point of view the so-called mental categories are ab-
sorbed in the ontogenetic and phylogenetic analysis of biophysical reactions
and biosocial responses. The biosocial point of view calls for a direct
investigation of those conditions which are already classified by the natural
and social sciences as essential conditions for human behavior. Every
action is a sensorimotor function. To affirm that it is also a mental func-
tion does not seem to help in initiating that type of experimental program
which leads to more effective methods in the control of individual and
social behavior.
PART VIII
REACTION PSYCHOLOGY
CHAPTER 16
RESPONSE PSYCHOLOGY
Knight Dunlap
The Johns Hopkins University
In rereading the presentation of modern psychology from the "response"
point of view, or what I prefer to call "scientific psychology," embodied in
my contribution to the Psychologies of 1925 — and rereading it with as
critical an attitude as it is possible for a parent to take towards his
own child — I am impressed with three things. First, that however pro-
phetic the presentation may have been at the time of its writing, it today
represents in a distinct way the actual situation in American psychology,
particularly as regards those psychologists most directly involved in experi-
mental research. Secondly, the arguments which the purposivists, the
mechanists, the behaviorists, and the Gestalters make against each other
are in the main merely arguments for scientific psychology. Thirdly, the
presentation I made five years ago still seems an adequate one, still highly
useful for the student of some initial training ; and I am unable to better it,
except by a few further developments, partly in explication, partly in the
presentation of further hypotheses which may possibly contribute to still
further progress in the next decade. I may therefore save valuable print-
ing space and economize the reader's time, by re-endorsing and recom-
mending what I have said in my first two lectures (7, 8), in the Psycholo-
gies of 1925 [the third lecture (9) was designedly less fundamental], and,
proceeding from that point on, I can also avoid some needless repetition by
referring the reader to my Elements of Scientific Psychology (2) for details,
although on certain points I have been able to make great improvement
since the printing of the first edition (shortly to be revised), especially in
regard to the topics of instinct and habit. What I have to present below
are certain advances over the formulations previously made.
I
The term "conscious" and "consciousness" are subject to great misun-
derstanding, and my earlier method of employment of these terms is partly
at fault. The reader may receive the impression that, in spite of disclaim-
ers, scientific psychology assumes some mystic stuff, process, or state, simi-
lar to the consciousness of James, Wundt, and Titchener. Let us proceed,
therefore, to the clarification of this conception by the method which I have
been in the habit of using in my classes.
I hold up a pencil, and inquire of the class whether they can see it or not.
The unanimous response is, "Yes." I hold the pencil behind my back,
and inquire whether they now see it, and the unanimous reply is, "No."
I then call their attention to the fact that persons blindfolded, or devoid
[309]
310 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
of eyes, could not see the pencil and ask them whether, in their under-
standing of the verb "to see," I am employing the word correctly, and
again the response is unanimous. I then announce to them that the mean-
ing of the verb "to see," as we have used it in these instances, is the mean-
ing in which we use the term in psychology, and the only meaning we em-
ploy. I then ask them if they agree to the proposition that seeing really oc-
curs, and is an important event in life, in spite of the admitted fact that there
are persons who are incapable of seeing. Again there is complete unanimity.
I then announce that I should be glad to hear at any time of any person who
either in the present or past doubts or has doubted that proposition.
I next call attention to the fact that there are a multitude of questions
and problems concerning seeing — as to the biological mechanism, the phys-
ical conditions, and the psychological conditions (some of which are con-
troversial), but that we have not so far attempted to answer any of these
or to take any stand in regard to them. We have merely agreed as to
what we mean by the term, as an indispensable preliminary to the discus-
sion of the problem.
I proceed in a similar way to elicit the fact that there is a complete
agreement as to the fundamental meaning of the verbs "to hear," "to
taste," and "to smell." Next, I point out the usefulness of adjectives and
nouns, both concrete and abstract, in the discussion of events and processes.
I call attention, for example, to the verb "to work," as a general term
under which are subsumed the more particular verbs "to plow," "to saw,"
"to typewrite," "to cook," etc. Also to the general substantive "labor"
and the adjective "laborious," and the abstract noun "laboriousness." I
then point out that there is a need for a generic verb under which to sub-
sume "to see," "to hear," "to taste," "to smell," and any other verbs we
may subsequently find which obviously need to be subsumed under the same
class of verbs. I point out next that we do not need to invent such a verb,
as there is one already in common use, namely, the verb "to sense-perceive,"
which we may shorten to "to perceive." I explain also that there may be
other and confusing usages of this verb "to perceive," and that alternatives,
such as "to sense" and "to intuit," are possible.
The next step is to ask the students whether or not they can individually
remember what they had for breakfast on a certain day, ten days preceding.
To this question several answers are received, chiefly "yes," "no," and
"not certainly." By further discussion, agreement as to the use of the
term "to remember" is reached. The verbs "to imagine" and "to antici-
pate" are then brought up in the same detailed way, and agreement reached
upon them. It is then pointed out that these verbs are not, by the con-
ventions of the English language, subsumed under the verb "to perceive"
(in the usage of "to sense," at least), but are conventionally subsumed
under "to think." Various phrases in common use are brought in here to
enforce this point, and the term "to think" is accepted as defined solely in
terms of "to imagine," "to remember," and "to anticipate," with the warn-
ing that we may, or may not, find still other verbs meriting or demanding
subsumption under "to think" along with these.
KNIGHT DUNLAP 311
The common usage of "to feel" is next brought out by reference to the
usages "to feel tired," "to feel sorry," "to feel hungry," "to feel angry,"
etc. The three terms "to perceive," "to think," and "to feel" are then
brought together, and it is pointed out that it is theoretically possible that
there may be still other terms on the same level, such as "to will," but that
it is not necessary to consider that point at present.
The correlated adjective and substantive terms, such as "vision," "vis-
ual," "auditory," etc., are indicated as defined solely with reference to the
verbs. The question is then raised as to the possibility of a still higher
generic term which will include "to perceive," "to think," and "to feel,"
and it is pointed out that we have in common everyday use such a term,
namely, the term "to be conscious." The usage is emphasized by pointing
out that if a person is assumed to see, or otherwise "to perceive," or to
image or otherwise think, to feel in any way, he is unanimously said to be
conscious; that if he does none of these things he is said to be not conscious.
The final procedure is to the more abstract terms. The significance of
abstract terms is indicated by reference to goodness, loquacity, triangular^
ity, etc., and attention is then called to the fact that we have the term
consciousness in common use in a way exactly parallel to these other ab-
stract terms.
It is not difficult to make clear to the student that in the procedure out-
lined there have been no explanations of any of the items designated nor
have any theories been introduced, beyond the basal theory of the signifi-
cance of agreement and disagreement which is accepted whenever two per-
sons talk together, whether these persons hold this or that philosophical
theory. The whole procedure is readily understood as the pointing-out of
facts concerning which there is no disagreement as to their actuality and
the convention of assigning names to them. What does need repeated em-
phasis over a long period of weeks or months, especially to the student who
has absorbed confused theories of behavioristic, psychoanalytic, or other
loose types of thought, is that psychology attaches no other meanings to
these terms than the ones which have been thus detailed, and that what-
ever theories or explanations may be considered later must always be
brought down to application to what is really meant by the terms, and
that no other meanings shall be covertly or illicitly introduced. Even the
students sophisticated by the isms admit that no one has ever denied con-
sciousness in the sense in which it is used in scientific psychology for the
simple reason that no one has seriously or will seriously deny that seeing
and hearing, etc., occur, in spite of the admitted fact that there are many
who are sightless and many totally deaf.
II
Scientific psychology, as may be readily seen by referring to my lectures
in the Psychologies of 1925, steers clear of both mechanism and purposiv-
ism, as these isms are preached by their zealous propagandists. No one
denies that there is a system and a corporeal object through which the
mental life proceeds. The most obstinate purposivist spends much time in
312 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
explaining this mechanism and in showing that his purposive factors — in-
stincts or whatever they are — are an important part of it. The most de-
vout mechanist admits that human beings actually have purposes, and that
the purposes are not unconnected with persons' actions. It is only in their
philosophical explanations that these isms differ; and the scientific psj^chol-
ogist has no philosophical interpretations. We are interested in determin-
ing experimentally how the mechanism works and what part purposes play.
It is perhaps the absolute determinism and the crude materialism of the
mechanist to which the purposivist objects, and it is the supernatural ele-
ment which the purposivist insists is expressed in purposes which excites the
ire of the mechanist. The scientific psychologist rejects both. He sees nc
profit in assumptions which do not lead to experimental test ; and material-
istic, supernatural, deterministic, and libertarian assumptions are in this
category.
In the working-out of the mechanism through which the mental proc-
esses are developed, scientific psychology has discarded the old stimulus-re-
sponse viewpoint and recognizes integration as the cardinal process. When,
in the simple reaction-time measurement, a reactor is instructed to respond
to a flash of light by a finger movement, we may still call the limited areal
light patch "the stimulus" and the finger movement "the response." But
we insist that these terms are abstractly used and that the real stimulus is a
pattern involving vast areas of receptors, and the real "response" is also a
widely distributed pattern in which the muscle actions which depress the
finger are only a detail. In these terms, the problems of learning (includ-
ing the conditional reflexes) become much more intelligible, and are solu-
ble in a systematic way.
Extensions which I have urged recently in this conception are really but
the carrying-out of features which are implicit in it. Perceptual patterns
cannot be considered separately. In the reaction-time measurement, the
instructions which have preceded the stimulus are an admitted part of the
stimulus pattern, along with the total results of the preceding reactions to
"the same stimulus." We have even admitted that the visceral patterns of
feeling (emotion) are important parts of the total patterns involved, not
only in separately specified "responses" but also in the integrative process
of learning. Ideas, also, have been admitted as parts of the stimulus pat-
tern, as may be demonstrated by comparing the reactions of reactors who
have had the same incomplete instructions, but who have thought, one that
he was expected to do this, the other that he was expected to do that.
ni
What I have suggested in my heretical hypothesis of learning and un-
learning (10) is that the total effects of the different parts of patterns is
not to be understood in a simple additive way, especially as concerns the
ideational parts, but that certain factors may work in what may be loosely
called a subtractive way. This leads naturally to the conception that in
the integrative process of learning, repetition, which has in the past been
given an absolute value, may be merely a negative condition ; that the
"fixing" of an integrative condition established in a given "reaction" is en-
KNIGHT DUNLAP 313
tirely due to the nature of the stimulus pattern, and that it has in itself
nothing to do with the probability of recurrence of the response type. Or,
put in looser metaphor, the repetitions, whether few or many, are the car-
riers of the actual factors in learning or unlearning (both being the estab-
lishment of new integration relations) so that by repetition the probability
of recurrence may be increased or may be lessened.
This brings us to the vital point in learning. The total pattern estab-
lished in learning is never the pattern which is expected to produce the re-
sponse later, but always includes both fewer and more factors. We ex-
pect a certain part of the pattern involved in learning to produce a certain
part of the reaction pattern when combined with varying other stimula-
tion patterns or parts. In the conditions determining this dominance of
parts of stimulus patterns and the practical methods of securing dominance
lies the great problems of learning.
IV
In the hypotheses as to the general determining factors in integration,
the brain and the cerebrum in particular have long occupied the throne.
The phrenologists, in assigning mental functions to cortical areas, merely
followed a conception which had already been developed, and which they
made more explicit. The later physiologists, with their theories of "centers,"
continued the phrenological conceptions while rearranging the "faculties."
Popularly, "brain" differences are supposed to be extremely important for
mental life, and the inheritance of mental characteristics is assumed to be
bound up directly with the inheritance of brain characteristics.
Psychology in America has discarded the phrenological conception rather
thoroughly, a result for which I think we have largely to thank Shepherd
Ivory Franz. Scientific psychology has been driven by the logic of the
situation to the conclusion that there is no differentiation of kind between
the functions of one brain-cell and any other brain-cell in the normal brain
at any time, although there may be a differentiation in the intensity of ac-
tion of the different neurons. The specific function of the brain from this
point of view is integrative solely, and in that integration the specificity
involved is a specificity of connection. Neuron A, for example, when
stimulated "passes on" the irritation to this cell and not to that, because it
is connected with this cell and not with that; conversely, neuron A can
be stimulated by neuron B (which perhaps is in the lead-in chain from the
retina), and cannot be stimulated directly by neuron C (which perhaps is
in the afferent chain from the cochlea). Neuron M, whose cell-body lies
in the geniculate body, is connected directly with only a few cells in the
cortex; neuron W, lying entirely in the cortex, may be connected directly
with many other neurons. These differences are topographical, not quali-
tative. On the other hand, certain other cells in the periphery, the re-
ceptors, may have a different kind of function from those in the cortex or
cord. This is the logical result of the response point of view, in conse-
quence of the failure of evidence for qualitative differences in the cortex,
the ease with which one neuron apparently takes over the function of an-
314 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
other, if connections are established, and the fact that so far as can be seen
no qualitative differences are needed to explain the integrative facts.
I now desire to extend this hypothesis still further, adding a considera-
tion which seems to me of vital importance, and which is the logical ter-
mination of the progression away from phrenology. This may be ex-
pressed in the statement that for practical purposes any healthy human
brain is potentially equal to any other healthy human brain so far as men-
tal processes are concerned. This hypothesis excludes from consideration
pathological brains, whether microcephalic, syphylitic, or otherwise de-
generated or undeveloped. It involves the assumption that it is futile to
look to inherent brain capacities or potentialities for the explanation of in-
dividual mental differences and, of course, for racial mental differences.
It places the responsibility for mental heredity entirely outside the brain.
It does not, however, deny the possible importance of inherent differential
characteristics of the brain for certain functions of the type which would
commonly be classed as physical (such as muscular strength and endur-
ance ) .
Popularly, size of brain, as well as other characteristic differences of
structure of "normal" brains is supposed to be important in the human
being. The relatively greater weight of the female brain, for example, is
considered to have some direct bearing on male and female mental differ-
ences. Psychologists generally have abandoned this conception, although
recognizing the phylogenetic importance of relative brain weight. There
is an anomaly here, which the suggested hypothesis may resolve. The
striking fact that the brain, relatively, is enormously greater in the foetus
and infant than in the adult may also be of significance in relation to the
features of phylogenetic development.
If we suppose that the brain at birth, or just before, has in every case a
potentiality far greater than it will ever be called upon to actualize, we
shall be prepared to expect the differences in potentiality which may exist to
be of no practical importance in view of the low level of performance
which will be required. If (to resort to analogy) one automobile has a
60-horsepower engine, another a 90-horsepower, but if both are restricted
to a speed of 10 miles per hour over a level course, the difference in horse-
power is negligible. The difference in gearing, adjustment of carburetor,
accelerator, etc., may be important, but one engine is equal to the other
engine.
The analogy is defective, however, because the brain is subject to train-
ing. It is not assumed by the hypothesis advanced that two given human
brains are actually equal in their performances. The brains commence to
be trained from birth, or from a period antedating birth.
The training is given by means of the transit patterns impressed upon
the brain, and may be considered as the systematic adaptation of the brain
to the demands made upon it by the organism. We may say, in fact, that
the brain seems to be the only part of the organism which can be trained;
which is but a little stronger than the more conventional statement that
habit formation is the outstanding function of the brain. The limits, as
KNIGHT DUNLAP 315
well as the details of the training are set, not by brain limitations nor by
the environment alone, but by the environmental action as mediated or
transformed by the peripheral organs and tissues.
In different environments, the same organism v\^ould respond in different
ways, and would therefore receive different training. This principle is
universally accepted. In the same environment, two organisms with dif-
ferent peripheral mechanism would give different training to two brains
which might initially be alike. Perhaps this principle also might be gen-
erally accepted. We come then to the final question as to the difference
which would result when different brains, with equivalent peripheral
mechanisms, were subjected to the same environment; and the new hypo-
thesis is that there would be no difference.
In order to illustrate this proposition, let us make a supposition. Let us
suppose that a thousand infants from the Wolof tribe of Africa were ex-
changed at birth for a thousand new-born babies from Dublin, and that
for the next twenty-one years the thousand Wolof s were subjected to the
Irish environment in which the Dublin infants would have been brought
up, and the infants of Irish extraction were similarly "brought up Wolof."
We should expect to find that the transplanted groups, on the average, dif-
fered less from their foster folks than the two groups of foster folks differ
from each other. In other words, two groups of different stock, brought
up under the same environmental influence, would differ less than if
brought up in different environments. The approximation might per-
haps be greatest in the "mental" characteristics, but we might expect to
find some even in the "physical" characteristics.
We should expect to find, however (although behaviorists might dis-
sent), that very considerable differences would remain between the foster
children and their foster folks. Skin color, texture and color of hair,
facial characteristics, skull form, limb proportion, leg musculature, and cer-
tain other details would obviously be modified but little from the parental
types. We have every reason to expect that mental characteristics also
would show stock tendencies still (although we do not as yet know what
the basal stock characteristics are), and we may admit that the mental dif-
ferences between regular Wolof s and neo- Wolof s (i. e., Wolof s-by-adop-
tion) would be far less than the differences between regular Wolof s and
the regular Irish; and the neo-Irish (i. e., the Irish-by-adoption) likewise
would be mentally much more like the Irish than were their parents; but
there would still be mental differences between the regular breeds and the
changelings they harbored.
But now, let us suppose that instead of the babies being interchanged
only their brains were swapped, assuming for the sake of the argument
that a successful surgical operation of this kind could be performed. Ac-
cording to our hypothesis, as the infants grew up, the Irish-brained Wolofs
would not differ in any way from the entire Wolofs and the Wolof-brained
Irish would not differ from the regular Irish.
The hypothesis, in short, assigns the source and basis of mental differ-
ences (and most physical differences as well) to the periphery, instead of
316 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
to the brain. It is the demand made upon the brain by the periphery
which determines its development; and any healthy human brain is capa-
ble of responding to the maximal demands which any human organism is
capable of making.
The presence of embryonic nerve-cells in adult brains is evidence that
brains are provided with many more cells than will be needed. The rela-
tive unimportance of parts of the frontal lobes has long been suspected.
The re-establishment of peripheral connections with the brain after the
usual "centers" have atrophied is a sign of far more than "functional"
education. The brain has no difficulty in handling adequately afferent
currents due to stimulations as far apart in frequency as those of light and
sound. Is there any reason to doubt that if receptors were developed ca-
pable of responding to the intermediate ranges, and connected with the
cortex in early infancy, the cortex could effectively integrate the afferent
current from these into the general pattern?
What details of the periphery determine the brain development and ulti-
mately the response characteristics? First of all, the receptors. The deaf
and the color-blind do not suffer from cerebral defects, but from recep-
torial. Color-blindness does not make a great difference to the mentality
of the civilized person ; but how about the savage ? The deaf child is
strikingly like the feeble-minded, until by lip-reading he compensates for
the defect. In civilized groups, we find strains that are anosmic — another
defect that civilization makes less vital, since we no longer depend on
smell for protection against poisons, or as sex stimulations. These com-
pensations, however, are made by the brain. I do not suppose that mental
differences between breeds are to be accounted for in any important de-
gree by receptorial differences. Yet there is a distinct field for investiga-
tion into the individual mental differences correlated with receptorial dif-
ferences. Musculature is probably a more important source of mental
variation. The Wolof is known to differ from the white man in the de-
velopment of his musculature. Does it not affect his "mind"? Muscle
patterns are important factors in the restimulation of the brain. A slight
effect on the brain modifies it, and thereby contributes anew to further
modification of transit patterns, so that the ultimate effects of slight devia-
tions may be enormous.
I should like to know more about the sole plate interposed between
efferent neuron and muscle. It can be paralyzed, so that with nerve and
muscle unimpaired in functional capacity no action occurs because neuron
cannot excite muscle. Is the permeability or non-permeability of the sole
plate an all-or-none affair, or are there gradations? What an enormous
effect on muscle patterns would be made by even a slight change in the
transmission of the sole plate! This is something worth considering.
Glandular differences have long been considered as possible sources of
mental difference. In spite of the vast claims that have been made, we
really know little about glandular effects and their variations. But it is
not wise to rule out important possibilities because of absurdities that have
been perpetrated by enthusiasts. We do know that certain of the skin
KNIGHT DUNLAP 317
glands of negroes differ from the white man's type. But what of his liver
and pancreas? What of his salivary glands and his kidneys? What of
his ductless glands? Unfortunately, we know little about the glands of
any breed, although we do know that the internal secretions of the sex
glands have mental affects of a profound kind. Ancient peoples have be-
lieved that the development and type of sex organs, aside from the glands,
were somehow correlated with mental characteristics. Perhaps the an-
cients were on the right track here, as they were in so many other in-
stances.
The course of development of modern psychology for some years has
been towards the periphery as the place to search for the control of mental
processes, and away from the brain as a deus ex machina. The brain
is more and more conceived as having but one function, namely, integra-
tion expressed as transmission and habit formation. More and more we
are convinced that all brain neurons have one and the same kind of func-
tion qualitatively. More and more we have become interested in muscle-
patterns and glandular activity. The hypothesis I urge is but the logical
conclusion of our progressive reconstructions.
If the hypothesis is taken seriously, it will at least have a beneficial effect
— we shall be spurred to more detailed and more extensive investigation of
peripheral differences. A really great field for psychology is anthropo-
metry— not the dull measurement of skulls, but the measurement of sen-
sory acuity and stimulability, the determination of glandular characteris-
tics, the detailed study of musculature. I should even go so far as to
say that psychologists should begin to take a belated interest in the study of
heredity of hair texture and color and of skin characteristics, as well as in
skeletal and muscular details. Not that these are immediate determinants
of response type, but the whole periphery hangs together.
VI
The abandoning of the old doctrine of instincts was a necessary step in
the application of scientific methods to psychology. With this has gone
the reformation of the general doctrine of heredity; but scientific psychol-
ogy by no means overlooks the actual importance of heredity. The net re-
sult is that we no longer attempt to classify details of either structure or
function as "inherited" on the one hand and acquired on the other, but rec-
ognize the cooperative effects of heredity and environment throughout
(5, pp. 155-159, and 11). Artificial problems are frequently much sim-
pler than actual ones (which is perhaps the reason for the artificial crea-
tions), and in this case the problems of heredity have become much more
difficult to understand because they are nearer to the knotty facts. Hence
there will be a rather slow movement of psychologists and biologists to the
newer and more scientific formulations. Many will continue to force
vital phenomena into the old categories of "nature" and "nurture."
There is, however, a necessary reform closely connected with the aboli-
tion of discrete "instincts," which I have been a little late in urging (3, pp.
89-90), but which is an essential part of the progress of scientific psychol-
318 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
ogy. This is in the description of the emotions. Psychologists still speak
of the emotions as if they were discrete entities. Even some of the would-
be radicals, who belatedly followed the scientific movement in regard to
instinct, still base their theories on the assumption of discrete entities.
"Fear," "love," etc., are described, and made explanatory factors as if they
were as unique and different as so many islands in a placid sea.
This is, of course, an anachronistic point of view. The emotions consti-
tute a polydimensional continuum, in which we arbitrarily and for con-
venience designate certain ranges by certain names, and ignore the re-
maining ranges. "Fear," for example, is a qualitatively variable emotion.
The "fear" which I have in one connection is vastly different from the
"fear" in another contingency. Certain "fears" are qualitatively more
closely allied to certain angers than those angers are to certain other
angers, or those fears to certain other fears. The complexes we call fear
grade off into sex feeling in one direction, into anger in another, into
hatred in another, into depression in another, into mere anticipatory feel-
ing in another, into mere tenseness in another, into horror in another, and
so on. The limitations of language are probably responsible for the con-
siderations of the more common names as if they designated unique emo-
tional elements.
There may be emotional elements. I suspect there are, and have else-
where (2, pp. 315-316) given an indication of the types we may expect to
find. But if so, the specifically named emotions are varying combinations
of these, and are no more unique or fundamental than are the great ranges
of emotional "states" which are not as specifically named. The fear that
is obviously close to "anger" is just as unique, just as fundamental, as the
"fear" that is not so close to "anger"; and none of the different "fears" is
more fundamental than the others.
That the fundamental terms applied to qualitatively graded continui-
ties do not necessarily indicate basic qualities we have long known in the
field of color. The early color names are originally applied from practical
considerations — some to dyes or pigments, some to ranges of hues conspicu-
ously presented by sky or plant life or some other aspect of nature. But
the fundamental "green" and "red" of color theory are not the hues to
which the names are commonly applied.
Just so, the name "fear" has been applied to a range of emotion which
arises in certain typical situations, regardless of the wide variation in both
internal states and external behavior. From the point of view of the
situation, a threatened injury which may result in withdrawal in one case,
or complete inhibition in another, may be said to arouse "fear" in both
cases. From the point of view of behavior, the withdrawal and the in-
hibition are radically different and the internal states may be vastly differ-
ent even when the external behavior is of the same type.
In short, the popular classification of emotion, as adopted by the older
psychology (including behaviorism), is a classification based in the main
KNIGHT DUNLAP 319
on causal situations, and very little on behavior, visceral states, or any
other psychological facts. ^
Scientific psychology, therefore, must begin to use the stock emotion
names with full recognition of the fact that they are really the names of
typical stimulus patterns, and not names of typical emotional "expression"
nor names of typical emotions. We must look deeper for the psychologi-
cal analysis of the emotional life. This reform completes the cycle which
commenced with the rejection of images and sensations, and proceeded
through the rejection of "instincts."
It is no wonder that attempts at further analysis based on this assump-
tion that the emotional response is the same where the emotional stimulus
is the same, regardless of the organism, and ignoring its actual differences
in behavior, have always resulted in finding exactly what the analyzer set
out to find.
VII
The topic of desire is increasingly important in scientific psychology.
When I first made the list of nine desires (5, pp. 15-16, and 2, p. 324), I
had no notion that it was more than an illustration of the type of list that
must eventually be drawn up, nor did I consider it important to decide
whether these desires were actually different modes or tissue states, or
merely classifications. In further study of the function of desires in racial
psychology, political psychology, and the psychology of religion, I have
been astonished at the degree of completion which the list actually has, and
have found a steadily increasing value in the consideration of the various
problems in the light of these desires. It is apparent now that the appli-
cability to psychopathology and criminal psychology is just as great. With-
in the last year it has become evident that an enormous advance is pos-
sible in all these lines by the use of these guiding threads, and I can confi-
dently predict that five more years will see a revolution wrought in these
branches of psychology.
For adequate results, however, this work must be accompanied by seri-
ous attempts to determine the organic seats of the several "desires." Many
persons have supposed that the list of desires is merely a list of instincts
under a new terminology, overlooking the important differences I have
elsewhere emphasized (4).^ This misunderstanding has been facilitated, of
course, by my own lack of preciseness of terminology, since I applied the
term "desire" to the affective elements involved, as well as to the desire
proper, which is a common practice due to the lack of a distinctive term for
the "affective" basis of a desire. Appetence, or appetency, is, of course, an
abstract term, and has been commonly used as synonymous with desire.
"Drive" has acquired a special theoretical significance. "Appetite" strictly
applies only to certain so-called "physical" desires. Various other terms
^This is just the opposite of the classification of activities into instinct which is
based on teleological factors.
^Also, as concerns feelings — including desires — (2, pp. 312-313).
320 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
are ambiguous in their meaning. I have hesitated to introduce a new
term, but shall hesitate no longer. I shall use appet as the concrete term
to designate an actual affective basis of a desire. I shall use appetence, as
the abstract term referring to appets. It should be noted that I am not in-
troducing a new conception, since everyone who has carefully discussed
desire has assumed this appetent factor. Theories as to the nature and
exact functions of appets vary. It has apparently been held by certain di-
visions of the psychoanalytic school that there is but one appet, and that a
mysterious force called the libido. I would understand McDougall to
contend that there are a number of appets, and that they are psychic
forces. I understand that Woodworth calls the appets "drives," and at-
taches a certain interpretation which I do not clearly understand. I have
rejected all these interpretations, and have made a distinct hypothesis con-
cerning the appets; namely, that there are probably several appets, quali-
tatively different; that they are experiencible facts, just as colors, sounds,
and other sentienda are experiencible; and that their being experienced de-
pends on the excitation of certain visceral receptors, just as the experience
of colors depends on the excitation of visual receptors. I have brought
appets out into the periphery.
Quite aside from my hypothesis as to the nature of appets, it is to be at
once admitted that a desire, in the complete sense, includes analytically:
{a) an anticipatory idea of some condition not yet attained, and {b) the
appetence of the ideated condition. An appet not associated with a definitely
ideated object is not a desire (I suppose it would be called an "unconscious
desire" by certain psychoanalysts; to which I should object that it is not
necessarily "unconscious" at all, and that calling it a desire is the very
confusion we should avoid). On the other hand, a mere anticipatory
idea is by common consent not a desire. Now, the factor in desire for
which an organic seat is to be sought is the appet, not the anticipatory
idea. When earlier I attributed the food desire to the stomach, it was
the appet only that I so allocated.
The importance of my desire hypothesis, therefore, lies in the following
detailed assumptions:
1) The appets are peripheral, and not "central."
2) They are not mere categories or class names, under which activi-
ties are teleologically arranged.
3) They are experiencible facts, not mysterious forces.
The desires, and the instincts, are therefore not to be confused, although
the desires, as a matter of fact, may be real explanatory factors which the
instincts confusedly represent.
The investigation of desires in the problem of racial and political psy-
chology is to be based on recognition of the fact that the desires are con-
ditioned both by organic conditions and by thought. If different breeds
of men have certain characteristic tissue conditions, then desire will, under
similar environmental conditions, be different. On the other hand, the
desires can be modified by modification of thought habits, and also by
modifications of tissue conditions where such modification is possible. The
KNIGHT DUNLAP 321
desire for food, for example, can be temporarily abolished either by chang-
ing the stomachic conditions or by preventing the thought of food from
arising. Modification of the type of stomachic condition, or modification
of the thought habits concerning food, through whatever causes, may mod-
ify in a more or less permanent way the type of food desire. Similar con-
ditions apply to the sex desires and to all the other desires.
VIII
There has been evident an increasing tendency among psychologists to
use the term "unconscious" in the loose explanatory way which was intro-
duced by the Freudians, a tendency against which scientific psychology
must resolutely set itself if it is to avoid the quagmire of merely verbal ex-
planations which is fatal to further progress. I have elsewhere (6, 1)
pointed out in detail the vicious effects resulting from the confused concep-
tions of the Freudians, and shall merely summarize here.
In the first place, there is no objection to the term "unconscious" when
used with strict reference to the meaning of "conscious" as that term is
employed in everyday life and by scientific psychology. At certain times,
an individual may perhaps correctly be said to be unconscious, as under
the influence of ether, or in an exceptionally sound, dreamless sleep.
Even when he is "conscious" (of certain contents) he is necessarily un-
conscious of everything else in the universe.
There is, on the other hand, nothing but confusion in the use of the
term for conditions for which psychology has long had other and precisely
significant terms.
1 ) Retention. For responses once actualized, there may be estab-
lished a "permanent possibility" of reactualization. Having once had a
certain desire, I may have it again. If I have once thought John Smith
was a crook, the probability that I will sometime later think the same thing
about him may be increased. If I have once achieved a certain shot at
billiards, the probability of making it again under proper stimulation may
be increased. (We must not overlook, however, the possibilities of de-
creasing the probabilities.) To say that in the intervals between the re-
sponses, I am continuously but "unconsciously" desiring the condition, con-
tinuously but "unconsciously" thinking that Smith is dishonest, continu-
ously but "unconsciously" shooting billiards, is as stupidly confusing as it
would be to say that in the intervals between glancing at the face of my
watch I am continuously but "unconsciously" seeing it. Such usages
merely make it possible (and probable) for the confused psychologist to de-
ceive himself into the conviction that he can "explain" anything whatever
by merely referring it to the verbal concept of the "unconscious," for this
term becomes actually the designation of "that which needs explanation,
but which we are unable or unwilling to explain."
2) The modification of response, that is to say, learning or habit for-
mation. This is, of course, another aspect of the problem of retention.
Every response modifies the responding organism. What I have done,
perceived, thought, felt, in preceding days and years, of course, has entered
322 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
into the determination of what I do, perceive, think, and feel now. This
is no Freudian discovery, but a fundamental postulate of psychology for
many years. The Freudian discovery (analogous to someone's going out
and discovering the moon) was that in some cases, in responding conscious-
ly, we are not conscious of the vast stretches of past life which have con-
tributed to the present response. The real joke in the situation is that
psychology has long recognized that not only in these apparently peculiar
cases but in all cases except certain special ones one is unconscious, during
a specific response, of the antecedent conditions: The exceptions are those
thought responses in which one thinks of the past, and these occur relatively
seldom. Further, psychology has long recognized that in certain cases, the
antecedent conditions can be "recalled" by appropriate stimulations, and
that what cannot be recalled at one time or under one set of circumstances
may be recalled at another time in other circumstances; and further, that
certain antecedents cannot be recalled by any technique available. It is
necessary to go even further in scientific psychology, and point out that in
no response is there consciousness of the response itself but always of some-
thing else, and that, for consciousness of the end-part of any response (the
muscle pattern), a second response, stimulated by the muscle pattern itself,
is necessary. This is of course implied in the James-Lange theory of the
emotions.
3) The greatest confusion, however, is due to the use of the term
"unconscious" to designate factors which, in the common usage of the
term, psychology designates as conscious. The looser literature is full of
statements to the effect that one "unconsciously put out his hand," etc.,
when the meaning is not that the individual was unconscious of putting out
his hand but that he had not a purpose to put out his hand. In all these
loose usages (and they are legion) the references are to performances that
are as "conscious" as any act the individual performs; and the meaning the
writer would have, if he could think clearly at all, is merely that the in-
dividual was unconscious of certain things, but not necessarily of the things
which are implied by the loose statement.
In all these confusions there is perhaps a basis of confusion in our com-
mon usage of the adjective term "conscious" in two different ways. We
speak of a man as "conscious" when he is conscious of something, and we
speak of a response as "conscious" when through it one is conscious of
something. On the other hand, we apply the term to the content which
the individual is conscious of, as when we say a movement of the hand or
some other member was "conscious." The second usage is, of course, a
derivative one, and need not interfere with precise analysis; but great con-
fusion is introduced when we discuss the thought procedures, if we forget
that fact. A "conscious thought" means literally that one is thinking of
something. This is all it means in common speech and in psychology.
But it is easy, by analogy with the references to "conscious movements," to
assume that a "thought" is some entity which "consciousness" surrounds
like an aura, or from which it emanates like an effluvium; in which case it
is easy (and utterly misleading) to assume that there may be entities de-
KNIGHT DUNLAP 323
void of this aura. The fundamental trouble with the dealers in the
Freudian unconscious is that they have totally forgotten what the word
"conscious" means.
REFERENCES
1. DuNLAP, K. Mysticism, Freudianism, and scientific psychology. St. Louis:
Mosby, 1920. Pp. 173.
2. . Elements of scientific psychology. St. Louis: Mosby, 1922.
Pp. 368.
3. . The identity of instinct and habit. J. Phil, 1923, 19, 85-94.
4. . Instincts and desires. J. Ahn. & Soc. Psychol., 1925, 20, 170-
Social psychology. Baltimore: Williams & Wilkins, 1925.
The subconscious, the unconscious, and the co-conscious.
Studies in honor of Morton Prince. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1925.
Pp. 245-253.
The theoretical aspect of psychology. Chap. 14 in Psychologies
Pp.
368.
173.
Pp.
261.
of 1925. Worcester, Mass.: Clark Univ. Press, 1926. Pp. 309-329.
-. The experimental methods of psychology. Chap. 15 in Psy-
chologies of 1925. Worcester, Mass.: Clark Univ. Press, 1926. Pp. 331-351.
9. . The application of psychology to social problems. Chap. 16
in Psychologies of 1925. Worcester, Mass.: Clark Univ. Press, 1926. Pp.
353-379.
10. . A revision of the fundamental laws of habit formation.
Science, 1928, 67, 360-362.
11. Jennings, H. S. Prometheus. New York: Button, 1925. Pp. 86.
PART IX
DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY
CHAPTER 17
DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY
Robert S. Wood worth
Columbia University
There is a curious contrast in present-day psychology between the mu-
tual hostility of the several schools, on the one hand, and the solidarity of
the group of psychologists, on the other. From the insistence of each
school on the futile and reprehensible tendencies of the others, you would
scarcely expect to find them meeting in associations and congresses on a
footing of mutual respect and interest, nor to see them laboring together
on abstract journals and the like; yet this cooperation is just what you
find. They must have more in common than would at first appear, and
this curious cleavage into schools, a phenomenon almost peculiar to psy-
chology among the sciences of the day and probably to be regarded as a
symptom of adolescence, must be less fundamental than it seems.
"D3^namic psychology," as I have used the words for twenty years, does
not aspire to be a school. That is the very thing it does not wish to be.
Personally, I have always balked on being told, as we have been told at in-
tervals for as long as I can remember, what our marching orders are —
what as psychologists we ought to be doing, and what in the divine order
of the sciences psychology must be doing. Instead of bringing down the
tables of the law, it has seemed to me a more important and really more
ambitious undertaking to approximate a definition of psychology by pro-
ceeding from below upwards, in the hope of reaching a definition that
would cover the scientific work of all psychologists. There must be some-
thing substantial underlying the solidarity of the psychological group, and
the phrase, dynamic psychology, if broadly conceived, suggests the com-
mon trend, so far as I have been able to grasp it.
Any system of psychology which starts with the assumption that most
students of the subject are on the wrong track has little chance of being
adequate, however stimulating it may be for the moment. One might
better start with such premises as these :
1) The presumption is that all sincere and able investigators are doing
something worthy of being included in the system.
2) This presumption holds rather of the actual research of psychologists
than of their attempts to formulate systems. In the latter effort, they are
exposed to the danger of spinning out theories that have only a tenuous
connection with their actual findings, and to the further danger of seeking
to exalt themselves by the familiar process of trampling on the prostrate
forms of their fellows.
3) The total psychological group is presumably wiser than its indi-
vidual members, when the question is one of aim and trend.
[327]
328 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
It will probably be. agreed by all that psychology studies the individual
organism. The individual is studied, to be sure, in relation to the environ-
ment, but everything centers in the individual, from the psychologist's point
of view. It is clear also that psychology is concerned with the activities
rather than with the structure of the individual — that it is closer to physio-
logy than to anatomy. The distinction from physiology is not perfectly
easy to draw, but there would be wide agreement with the formula that
psychology considers the individual as a whole, leaving to physiology the
activities of the various cells and organs and their mutual relations.
It does not appear to me that such a definition commits us to "act
psychology" or to "self psj'^chology," Certainly consciousness of activity
or of the self is not to be included in our general definition, though there
may be real psychological problems expressed in these words. The
"subject" in psychology is the organism, not the self, and the activity is
any process which depends upon the life of the organism and which can be
viewed as dependent upon the organism as a whole.
Now in describing activities or processes, psychology is sure to make
use of the notions of cause and effect, and so to be a study in dynamics.
At this point, however, if not before, objections begin to arise. We are
urged to keep our skirts clear of those old-fashioned notions of cause and
effect. Our attention is called to the fact that critical modern science
dispenses with causation and explanation, and limits itself to description.
Psychology, accordingly, would take a step backwards if it stressed such
ideas more than it has been wont to do. It should rather seek to follow
the older sciences by eradicating them.
But it is curious to find physics and astronomy still making abundant use
of cause and effect. The question is raised as to the origin of the solar
system, and elaborate computations are made to determine whether this or
that explanation is adequate. The best explanation is perhaps that the
near approach of another star to our sun was the cause of the splitting-off
of matter from the sun, which later condensed into the planets. It would
seem from such discussions that astronomy, though one of the oldest and
best developed sciences, had not yet fully reached the status of a critical
science.
Physics is no better. Does not physics include dynamics, the study of
the "motion of bodies as affected by the forces which act upon them"?
Here we meet that old word, "force," supposed to be banished from
modern scientific theory. To be sure, as we read on we find that force
is defined as the product of mass and acceleration, or as that which generates
a certain momentum by acting for a given time, and that, for the purposes
of dynamics, all we need to know about a force is the momentum which
it generates in unit time. If force is thus defined in terms of the motion
it produces, it seems at first thought a superfluous concept, or at best a
convenient symbol which adds nothing to the description of the motion
which force is said to produce. Such and such a motion, so it would seem,
is simply said to be the effect of that which causes it. But when we look
a little further, we find that the force acting upon a certain system is not
j ROBERT S. WOODWORTH 329
defined in terms of the changes which it produces in that system, but in
[terms of its effects on other systems, previously studied. The force is,
[for example, gravity, already well known, and the question is raised as to
fthe effect of this force upon any system whose motions are to be described
[or predicted. With respect to any given system, a force is something acting
I upon that system from outside. No doubt in a complete description of an
all-inclusive system the notions of force, causation, and explanation would
all be dissolved. But science is very far from attempting to compass all
the motions in the universe within a single description. It always deals
with systems that are subject to outside influences, i.e., to forces; and,
thus, however critical it may be, and hovi^ever hypercritical in its use of
terms, it has frequent use for the ideas embodied in such words as force
and cause.
The system which psychology attempts to describe, the organism, is
anything but a complete or closed system, and therefore psychology is bound
to make much use of the notion of causes or forces, whether frankly so-
called or referred to as conditions, stimuli, influences, situations, or what-
not. Not only are there external factors that affect the individual's
activity, but we know that the organism never acts absolutely as a whole,
however convenient we may find the expression, "activity of the organisnj
as a whole," in our definition of psychology. A person is engaged in
difficult reading, and fneanwhile another, metabolic process is going on
within him, with the result that suddenly hunger pangs break in upon
his reading and very likely interrupt it. Such being the state of the
matter, any psychology which became so critical as to exclude altogether
the notion of cause and effect, and limited itself to describing experience
as just a stream of happenings, would, in my opinion, be no science at all.
But there is no such psychology in the laboratory, or anywhere outside of
a theoretical definition. Always stimuli, conditions of the experiment,
instructions to the subject, and attitudes of the subject are brought into
the description. Therefore I conclude that even introspective psychology,
however "existential" it may set itself to be, is really dynamic at heart.
Existential psychology, as represented by Titchener (5) and by Weldj,'
(7), professes to read all meaning and value out of the field of its observa- j
tions, and to do so in obedience to a general canon of critical science, y
Let us see. The physicist is making an observation. His eye is fixed
upon a dial, and he records the position of the pointer at a certain time.
He does not record his mere sensory experience; he records the reading
in terms of degrees of temperature, or volts, or whatever he knows the
reading to mean. Moreover, if you asked him what he had observed, you
might be much surprised at the length to which he would go in assigning
meaning to this simple sensory experience. If you asked him why he
made no record of the candlepower of the light illuminating his dial, he
would say that that fact was entirely irrelevant and valueless for the
matter in hand. Certainly his observations are not free from meanings
and values in any absolute sense. The meanings and values that have to
be read out in order to get purely existential data are preconceptions.
330 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
hasty inferences, fear of consequences, or concern for practical utility — in
short, meanings not belonging in the system which one is endeavoring
to observe and describe. But a psychologist, examining the phenomena
manifested by an individual, may find meanings, purposes, desires, valua- \
tions as existent processes appertaining to that individual. If psychology
is to describe so much of the existential w^orld as is manifested by the
individual, it must, sooner or later, take account of such meanings and
values, and must not allovt^ itself to be frightened off by the mere sound
of those words.
i Let us grant that psychology ought to be existential, i.e., that it should
1/ jibe tough-minded in its insistence on definitely factual data. There is
''I ijnothing in that requirement that limits psychology to the study of sensa-
I tions, or that limits it to the study of the individual as an experiences
'.There is nothing that prevents it from studying the individual's motor
behavior. It is admitted that biology can study the individual organism
in all sorts of ways, and still remain perfectly existential and critical.
To discover the reason for excluding behavior study from the strict
boundaries of psychology, one has to go back into history. Psychology
started, and long continued, as an enterprise of isolated individuals.
There were no laboratories, no special facilities for studying other persons.
Each isolated student, when he approached psychological questions, took
his own experience as his source of information, and thus psychology
centered in the psychologist himself and consisted in a study of one's own
experience. With the advent of laboratories and groups of psychologists,
the subject of an experiment became typically someone other than the
investigator himself, and psychology became in practice the "psychology
of the other one," to use a pregnant phrase of Max Meyer. But if we
are studying the "other one," there is no excuse for limiting the study
to his "experiences"; we should study his behavior as well, if only to
round out our study and to see things in their relations. It will scarcely
be satisfactory to regard behavior study merely as a related discipline,
for neither behavior study nor experience study is anything but a fragment
when taken alone.
At one time in its history, psychology was defined as the science of
inner experience, and so distinguished from the physical sciences, which
were based on outer experience. But it was impossible to distinguish
sharply between inner and outer experience, and, besides, psychology, to
be complete, had to consider outer experience as well as inner. Wundt
attempted to draw the distinction as between mediate and immediate
experience, psychology taking the immediate, and physics the mediate.
But as far as the experience of the scientific observer is concerned, it is
as immediate in physics as in ps5'^chology. Then Mach and Avenarius
concluded that experience was the same, whether utilized by physics or
by psychology, and that the difference lay entirely in the point of view.
Physics took its observed facts as related to each other, but as independent
of the observer, while psychology considered its facts as related to the
individual who happened to be the observer. The field of psychology
ROBERT S. WOOD WORTH 331
included all experience, considered in its relation to, or in its dependence
upon, the experiencing individual. Such a definition seems at first sight
to allow psychology all the room it could possibly desire. But it is not
true in a literal sense that psychology covers all experience. As a science,
it covers only experience that has been scientifically observed. Further,
the data obtained by the physicist in his scientific observations are seldom
of any use to psychology, not being made from the psychological point of
view, nor under conditions arranged to bring out their relation to the
observer. Psychology, according to this definition, is limited to the ex-
perience of psychological observers as dependent upon those observers.
Psychology is limited, then, to the study of certain types of observation.
If it is further true — which I do not believe — that all the existential
material that can be got from a study of observation consists in sensations,
without meanings of any sort, psychology is restricted to the study of
sensory processes, and its field is decidedly narrowed. Moreover, the
beautiful symmetry of the formula, all experience to physics when
examined from its point of view, all experience to psychology when
examined from its different point of view, has disappeared, and we are
left without any aesthetic ground for adhering to that particular defini-
tion. It is best to keep so much of it as points to the individual as the
focus of psychological study, and to say that psychology is the study of
the experience and behavior of the individual, both terms being used in
the broadest possible sense consistent with existential data. Then, since
experience is really not passive, but depends on the life and energy of
the individual, we can combine experience and behavior under the in-
clusive term, "activity," and say that psychology is the study of the
activities of the individual as an individual.
Such a definition can claim some symmetry for itself at that. Within
the broad field of biological science, it contrasts our science with physiol-
ogy, the study of the activities of parts of the organism, and with sociology,
the study of groups of individuals.
The proposed definition approximates definitions given by behaviorists
as well as by introspectionists, and evidently covers all the positive findings
of both wings. What it disregards consists of tabus set up by the different
schools against certain positive findings of other schools. It removes, for
example, the behaviorist's tabu against all the findings of introspection.
Apparently the behaviorist started from the old and outgrown conception
of introspection as revealing an inner world, separate from the natural
world, and he conceived that the only way to rid psychology of super-
naturalism was to banish introspection. On the positive side, the be-
haviorist started with fruitful studies of the behavior of animals, and
wished to extend this line of study to the human subject. He wished to
study the facts of human and animal behavior as they appear to the
scientific observer rather than as they appear to the performing individual.
Now, since the observable activities of other persons are executed by
muscles and glands, the behaviorist thought himself forced to the con-
clusion that all behavior data consisted in muscular and glandular activity.
332 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
In reality, since behavior is constantly affected by stimuli 'to the sense
organs, and since the organization of motor and glandular activities is
an affair of the nervous system, the behavior w^hich is observed is no more
muscular and glandular than it is sensory and cerebral. But, taking as
his premise the statement that all behavior is muscular and glandular,
and then finding in common usage, as w^ell as in the "traditional" psy-
chology, such terms as thinking and emotion, conscious and unconscious,
the behaviorist felt that, if his psychology w^ere not to be too meager, he
would have to formulate some conception of these processes in muscular
and glandular terms. So thinking became subvocal speech, and emotion
visceral behavior; the conscious v^as the verbalized and the unconscious
the unverbalized (6, p. 346). If you accept these conceptions, you are
in the way of being scientific, but otherwise you are back in the dark
ages of myth and religion.
Two things are clear regarding these behavioristic conceptions. In the
first place, their only reason for existence is to explain phenomena which
the individual experiences in himself. They were not suggested by an
unprejudiced study of the viscera and the speech organs. There is nothing
in the known activity of the speech organs to lead to the notion of their
"implicit" activity or to the notion of thinking; and there is little in the
known activity of the viscera to suggest the idea of emotion. Why do
not the behaviorists inaugurate a straightforward study of visceral activ-
ities, beginning, one would expect, with the more obvious activities of
digestion and peristalsis, instead of making so much of the obscure move-
ments which they call emotion? Why, except that emotion is otherwise
known to them, and because, from the experience of individuals, it is
known to be a matter of great interest? So I say that the behaviorist is
logically bound to admit experience, as well as behavior, as a characteristic
of the individual.
In the second place, these particular conceptions of the behaviorists are
evidently hypotheses, and therefore should not be used to define psychology.
They belong in the superstructure of the science and not in its foundations.
Instead of being regarded as dogmas, they should be promoted to the
more honorable status of respectable scientific hypotheses. Even if they
should be disproved, as is the fate to be expected of all rough-and-ready
hypotheses, they may have served well as stimulators of research. But
their failure would not shake the foundations of the dynamic psychology
which accepts them as hypotheses, though it would undermine a be-
haviorism which regarded them as essential to the definition of psychology.
A definition of the science should not rest upon hypotheses.
The greatest deficiency of behaviorism is that it minimizes the receptive
phase of the organism's activity, the processes ordinarily called sensation
and perception. Behaviorism has either to regard these as motor processes,
or else to exclude them altogether from the list of the organism's activities.
Regarding them as motor performances is cumbersome at the best, and
not stimulating to research. Regarding them as "environmental" leads
to the proposal that they should be left to other sciences whose concern is
ROBERT S. WOOD WORTH 333
with the environment (2, p. 36). If colors are purely environmental,
why should the psychologist study them? When, however, we find a
color-blind individual, we have simply to say that his environment is
peculiar, unless we are willing to recognize color vision as an activity of
the organism, and so as a proper study for psychology (and physiology).
Light is not simply an environmental fact, a stimulus to the organism,
for all radiation is not luminous and the distinction between the luminous
and the non-luminous can be made only by try-out upon the organism.
The illuminating engineer cannot measure light by purely physical means,
but needs the organism as a registering instrument in his photometry.
In the same way, the telephone engineer cannot content himself with
the physics of sound, but has to try out the audibility of different sounds
and combinations of sounds upon the organism as a registering instrument
having certain limitations and peculiarities. It is interesting to find that
these engineers even make practical use of the notion of "sensation units,"
derived from Fechner. We also find them making many of the important
contributions of the present day to the psychology of sensation. So it is
far from true, as behaviorists have sometimes said, that the notions of
sensation and perception are simply a hang-over from primitive concep-
tions of the soul, or purely visionary in some way. On the contrary,
they belong to one of the most scientific — as well as practical — parts of
psychology, and the behaviorist's tabu against them, so far as it is heeded
by psychologists, prevents them from doing part of their proper work,
and keeps them out of touch with workers in the physical sciences. Just
as the existential psychology, as defined, would hamstring psychology on
the one side, so behaviorism would hamstring it on the other. Dynamic
psychology refuses to be a party to any such mutilation.
As far as its positive contributions are concerned, however, behaviorism
belongs squarely within the pale of a dynamic psychology, defined in the
general terms we have used. And the same is obviously true of another
very important modern school, the Gestalt psychology. So much is
clear at once from the insistence of this group of psychologists upon the
study of the conditions under which any perception or learning occurs.
To study the dependence of an event upon conditions is to study dynamics.
The concept of Gestalt itself is a dynamic concept, and the critiques
which these psychologists direct against sensory analysis, the conditioned
reflex, and learning by trial and error, all belong within the field of
dynamic discussions in a psychological sense and quite apart from the
particular physical dynamics which the authors seek to apply to the
organism. But I would not grant that Gestalt psychology included all
scientific psychology, until this school shows how it can take up into its
system the positive findings of sensory analysis, motor analysis, and the
analysis of learning. So long as the Gestalt attitude towards these lines
of psychological investigation remains purely negative, I am forced back
upon the premises with which I started this paper. Here we have able
investigators — Helmholtz, Sherrington, Pavlov, Thorndike, to mention
just a few — and we have findings repeatedly verified and bearing all the
334 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
earmarks of scientific results. The results may be in need of reinterpreta-
tion, but as results they certainly stand. But the Gestalt psychologists
give the impression of believing that this whole analytic style of investiga-
tion is fundamentally unsound. Dynamic psychology cannot define its
aim in such a way as to exclude any line of investigation that has proved
fruitful, or that might prove fruitful, and would regard the distinction
between the Gestalt psychology and other scientific psychology as not
fundamental. In short, the Gestalt idea, though highly important and
fruitful, belongs in the superstructure of psychology, and not at its
foundations.
! In another paper, I have sought to show how dynamic psychology,
using the concepts of stimulus and response, and using in particular the
notion of a total sensorimotor reaction as consisting of a series of responses,
has room both for sensory analysis and for the Gestalt findings on per-
ception. Gestalt psychology, as it still seems to me, goes too far in
telescoping this series of responses into a single continuous dynamic
process. But I am willing to admit that I may still be misreading the
Gestalt position, as I did in the article just referred to, when I said of
the Gestalt psychologists: "Finding configuration to exist outside the
organism, they suggest that it passes by some continuous flux into the
organism, so that there need be no unfigured stage in the organism's
response" (8, pp. 67-68). Kohler has very courteously pointed out
(4, p. 174) that I have here entirely misunderstood the Gestalt position,
and is curious to know how such a misunderstanding arose. Diligent
search in the Physische Gestalt en (3) and elsewhere has failed to show
me any passage that would give any warrant for the statement quoted,
and I can only suppose that it arose as a hasty rationalization of the
importance assigned by Kohler to the notion of physical Gestalt.
The various hormic psychologists, exemplified by McDougall and Freud,
certainly operate with dynamic concepts, striving, wish-fulfilment, conflict,
repression, transference, and a host of others. The difiiculty is to bring
these concepts down to earth, so as to let them work along with stimulus
and response, set, association, conditioning, learning, and forgetting.
Dynamic psychology would certainly not need to include in its consti-
tution the statement that purpose or striving is ultimate, and outside of the
realm of cause and effect, nor to take any stand on the biological question
of mechanism versus vitalism. Nor would dynamic psychology postulate
that all causes in the psychological realm consist of wishes or purposes.
When Freud says that no act is accidental, he means that every act has
a motive. "We have solved the riddle of errors with relatively little
trouble ! They are not accidents, but valid psychic acts. They have their
meaning; they arise through the collaboration — or better, the mutual
interference — of two different intentions." "This meaning of errors will
unavoidably become of the greatest interest to us and will, with justice,
force all other points of view into the background. We could then ignore
all physiological and psychophysiological conditions and devote ourselves
ROBERT S. WOODWORTH 335
to the purely psychological investigations of the sense, that is, the meaning,
the purpose of these errors" (1, pp. 26, 19).
There are, then, two objections to taking our cue from psychoanalysis
when we are seeking a general definition of our science. The psycho-
analysts furnish anything but a model of scientific method, and they treat
with indifference the simpler and probably more fundamental problems
of dynamics, so that if we followed their definition we should mutilate
psychology beyond the hope of recovery. Purpose enters dynamic psy-
chology as a cause among causes, but it cannot be permitted to crowd the
others out.
Psychology is admittedly not the only way of studying the organism
dynamically. Physiology so far is the same, and the distinction between
them is not easy to draw so as to coincide with all the labors of physiol-
ogists and psychologists. The distinction which assigns the activities of
the organism as a whole to psychology, and the activities of the organs
and cells to physiology, is at least a good approximation to the facts.
I like it also because it seems to take care of the mind-body problem
sufficiently for the purposes of science. There is no mind-body problem
in everyday life, but the problem emerges when the two sciences study
the organism with their different techniques. The parallelism is not a
parallelism between physiological and mental activities, but only a parallel-
ism between two different descriptions of the same activity. Where the
psychologist speaks of eating one's dinner, the physiologist, more analytic-
ally, speaks of the contraction of certain muscles under the excitation of
certain nerves, etc., but he is describing the same identical process as the >\^ ^
psychologist. When the psychologist speaks of seeing the color blue, the ^^
physiologist speaks of processes in the retina, the optic nerve and its brain
connections. There is no doubt, to my mind, that seeing blue is identically
the same process as that which the physiologist describes. If he were
able to give a much more complete analytical description than is possible
today, he would not, to be sure, ever find the color blue as an experience,
just because that experience is the total process which he is breaking up
into parts. Sensory experience, from this point of view, belongs as fully
in the stream of natural events as does muscular contraction. Every
activity of the individual is susceptible of physiological analysis, and no
doubt of chemical and physical analysis. But the possibility of such
analysis does not destroy the activities of the individual which are to be
analyzed. Psychology, then, is free to deal with the facts of sensation,
feeling, and purpose as well as with motor activities, without any fear of
getting outside of the field of natural science.
REFERENCES
1. Freud, S. A general introduction to psychoanalysis. (Trans, by G. S. Hall.)
New York: Boni & Liveright, 1920. Pp. x-|-406.
2. Hunter, W. S. Human behavior. Chicago: Univ. Chicago Press, 1928.
Pp. X+3S5.
3. KoHLER, W. Die physischen Gestalten in Ruhe und im stationaren Zustand.
Erlangen: Weltkreisverlag, 1920.
336 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
4 . Gestalt psychology. New York: Liveright, 1929. Pp. xii+403.
5. TiTCHENER, E. B. Systematic psychology: prolegomena. New York: Mac-
millan, 1929. Pp. xii+278.
6. Watson, J. B. Psychology from the standpoint of a behaviorist. (2nd ed.)
Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1924. Pp. ix+429.
7. Weld, H. P. Psychology as science. New York: Holt, 1928. Pp. vii+297.
8. WooDWORTH, R. S. Gestalt psychology and the concept of reaction stages.
Amer. J. Psychol, 1927, 39, 62-69.
PART X
'FACTOR" SCHOOL OF PSYCHOLOGY
1
CHAPTER 18
''G" AND AFTER— A SCHOOL TO END SCHOOLS
C. Spearman
University of London
I. The Present Happy Conjuncture
Of all the rival schools of psychology today, surely this one of g has been
the very Cinderella. Encountering as it did the strongest vested interests,
it has had to suffer from the three greatest unkindnesses, v^^hich are ignore-
ment, misrepresentation, and even, it must regretfully be added, not a little
plagiarism. Still out of this long-suffering it has developed a great virtue
of patience and tolerance. Whilst the other schools have flaunted abroad
in brilliant attire, it has only drudged on in the seclusion of research. And
whereas others have been essentially destructive, it has remained almost
wholly constructiveJ Its followers do not, like the behaviorists, tell us to
abolish introspection; nor, like the Berlin gestaltists, try to make us re-
nounce analysis ; nor, like the structuralists, bid us postpone indefinitely the
problems of function; nor, like the functionalists, have us pay little heed
to structure. Instead of such negations the factorists find good in every-
thing, even in the other "ists." They only want a place in the sun for
everyone — including themselves. They seek for the widest measure of re-
conciliation.
But, before trying to bring about such happy relations, all around, they
had first to set their own house in order. And this they seem now at last
happily able to do. For many years they have drawn a line between the
so-called "general theory" of two factors on the one hand and the "sub-
theories" on the other. The former proves and locates the factors, the
latter attempt to explain them. Thus the former lays the indispensable
scientific foundation, whereas the latter serve rather as a roof or crown,
and can even — at the price of unwieldy thinking — be left out of account.
The good fortune of the present moment consists in the fact that — con-
trary to common opinion — the general theory appears to be no longer seri-
ously disputed by any psychologist of authority. This assertion we shall
proceed to examine and verify, taking each main item of the general theory
in turn.
But first a word may be said about another common misconception of the
theory of factors, namely, that it can concern only those psychologists who
are profound mathematicians. Truly enough, the theory does raise cer-
tain points whose adequate treatment requires all the mathematical study
and training that are available — and perhaps more! But these are not
points that everyone is obliged to settle for himself. On the contrary, they
can quite well be left to those who specialize in this line. The conclusion
[339]
340 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
reached by such experts must, so far as they go, be taken by others simply
on faith. But this is no serious drawback; much the same seems to occur
in almost all other sciences, even physics itself. For the purposes of ordinary
work, the mathematics required by the psychologist who would need only
to understand and utilize the chief findings of the theory of factors are no i|
more than should be possessed by every normal child long before he or she
leaves school. Most assuredly they are such as should be mastered by ■
everyone who ventures to express any scientific opinion of his own. And I
they will scarcely be found missing in any person who studies the present]
volume.
II. The General Theory of Two Factors
After this preamble, let us, as promised, consider the "general theory"
point by point. It arose as a rebound from the doctrine of faculties. These/'
had constituted the foundation of classical psychology from the earliest
days. The most ancient and cardinal of them had been Sense, Intellect,
Memory, and Imagination. Little behind in antiquity and dignity had
come Attention, Language, and Movement. Innumerable others had been
proposed; and, indeed, continue to be so in greater profusion than ever.
For although nowadays all psychologists join heartily enough in condemn-
ing the faculties, most are but renouncing the old name whilst retaining
the old thing. Under some such title as Power, Capacity, Ability, Type,
and so forth, they flourish more and more. Instances are the alleged "cen-
sorship," "foresight," "capacity to notice resemblances," "power to break
up a complex and properly evaluate its parts," "ability to rearrange a bit
of mental content in any new and prescribed way," the "extroverted type
which apprehends and elaborates outer stimuli," or "introverted type
which concerns itself with the subjective perception released by the objec-
tive stimulus."
Now what, if anything, has really been wrong with all these faculties,
whether so named or otherwise? Nothing was fundamentally amiss, in my
opinion, so long as the faculty was only taken to indicate a class of mental
operations put together because they had some resemblance (as indicated by
the class-name). But things became very wrong indeed so soon as the
modern experimentalist proceeded to ineasure such a faculty, assuming for
this purpose that one member of the class could represent all the rest.
Thereby the members were treated as not only having a class resemblance
to each other but also as being perfectly correlated together. For certes,
nothing can serve as a measure of anything else except in so far as two
are intercorrelated. When the physicist measures a degree of temperature
by the height of a thermometer, he obviously assumes that the two go per-
fectly hand in hand. Similarly, when a psychologist measures the power
of attending to any vocational duties by the test of attending to printed
numbers, he is assuming that the one sort of attending is perfectly corre-
lated with the other sort. From a protest against this assumption sprang,
then, the whole theory of factors. Any such assumption, it was now urged,
stands at least in need of supporting evidence; otherwise the pretended
C. SPEARMAN 341
tests of mental ability are in danger of doing the testees grave injustice,^
Despite this protest, unfortunately, such unwarranted measurements are
i still allowed to make or mar the careers of innumerable men, women, and
children all over the civilized world. To this doctrine of some half a
dozen faculties, there would seem to have been only one serious rival. The
faculties had been based on differences in the form of mental operation. An
obvious amendment was to take also into account the differences in content.
But so doing rendered the abilities that must be considered different in-
finitely numerous; every idea provided an independent one of its own. It
was the doctrine of the Herbartians, and of gloomy scientific outlook. For
such an enormous number of abilities must needs render any adequate
measurement of a person's mental make-up a sheer impossibility. But, in
truth, here again was a view for which no definite evidence had been
brought forward ; the mutual independence of these abilities, limited each to
a single idea, had only been assumed, not in any wise proved.
Seeing that the trouble had lain in assuming without evidence either that
the different abilities were perfectly correlated together or else that they
were perfectly uncorrelated, the natural remedy was to devise and employ
some method by which correlation could be definitely measured. Accord-
ingly, about a quarter of a century ago, the present writer proceeded to
construct what are now commonly called correlation coefficients. These
are numbers which become unity when the two compared abilities (or
other variables) go perfectly together; they drop to zero when the two are
quite independent. Later, indeed, I found that such coefficients had al-
ready been devised elsewhere, and had even in one instance been applied to
psychological purposes. But this application had been nullified by a defect
that still impaired the correlational method (disturbance by "attenua-
tion").^ So there yet remained an almost virgin field to be explored by
means of these coefficients, when once they had been amended. In this way,
such coefficients became the first great pillar for all theories of factors. The
legitimacy of their usage, once hotly contested, is now admitted by every-
body.
The immediate result of using them was to show that the correlations
between the abilities on trial were neither perfect (as demanded by the
doctrine of faculties) nor zero (as demanded by Herbartianism), but had
instead values varying freely between these two extremes. For science
this result seemed to be as disastrous as Herbartianism itself. Any account
of mental make-up appeared to require an infinite number of correlational
coefficients. This would obviously pass the bounds of what is humanly
comprehensible. Psychology seemed to arrive at a deadlock.
At this point a fortunate discovery was made. Although the correlations
^For this and many later points, reference must be made to The Abilities of
Man by the present author (22), which contains the most comprehensive account
of the work of the numerous investigators belonging to this school. About the
"faculties" in particular, see Chap. III.
^For the original discovery of this "attenuation," see (20, pp. 89-90). For the
most complete account, see Kelley (11, Section 57).
342 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
between the different abilities had completely failed to satisfy either the
doctrine of the classical faculties or that of the Herbartian ideas, they did
convey a surprising impression of regularity. The exact nature of this
has been described in various w^ays. First as "hierarchy" ; then as "equi-
proportionality" ; now, usually, in terms of "tetrad differences."^ But all
these amount in substance to exactly the same thing; the regularity dis-
covered is that which, if perfect, would make everyone of the tetrad
differences exactly equal to zero. However, no such exactness was ever
observed, or could reasonably be expected. For there was bound to occur
at least some disturbance by what are called the errors of sampling; and
to make allowance for these just by looking at the table of coefficients was,
to say the least of it, hazardous. So this procedure of trusting to one's
general impression from the table was as soon as possible abandoned. The
theory of two factors came to rest instead upon the two following pro-
cedures. The first was mathematical. If the true values of the tetrad
differences were exactly zero, then the actually observed values would,
owing to the sampling errors, certainly not be so. Instead, they would
tend to deviate therefrom by small but appreciable amounts, whose usual
magnitude should admit of calculation by means of the theory of probabil-
ity. Such a calculation was achieved. It is at present being largely em-
ployed, and all serious dispute about its validity has at last died away (al-
most the only point still at issue is the minor one as to the best approxi-
mation formula to be used when the complete one becomes inconveniently
laborious).
After thus calculating theoretically these small deviations of the tetrad
differences from zero, which were to be expected when the real ones were
zero exactly, the next step was to see how far these theoretical values agreed
with those actually observed. The upshot of the comparison was to show
that the two were usually an extremely close match. The fact of this being
so, in a great number of cases at any rate, is now corroborated all around.
On making deductions for the sampling errors, then, the residual or true
tetrad differences must be taken to corrie right down to zero.
The next pillar was again mathematical; it brings the "factors" on the
scene. It consists in the theorem that, when all the true tetrad differences
tend to be zero, then and only then the score obtained by each person in each
test tends to be resolvable into two parts of the following kinds. One part
depends on an element or factor which remains always the same in all the
abilities of the same individual. The other part depends on a second factor
which, even for the same individual, differs freely from one ability to an-
other. The former factor has been named "general intelligence" or "gen-
eral ability." Any such thing as this, admitting as it does of definite
measurement, seems to have been an entirely new idea in the world. In
^If a, b, c, and d denote any four abilities, a tetrad difference is the correlation
between a and h multiplied by that between c and d minus the correlation between
a and e multiplied by that between h and d: or in the usual symbols,
C. SPEARMAN 343
particular, it was violently opposed to the reigning doctrine of faculties.
However, both these names for it (especially the "intelligence") soon ap-
peared to go beyond the evidence so far available. For this evidence had
only located the factor statistically and had not yet defined it psychologi-
cally. For all that had been shown so far it might turn out to be the
merest stunt. Hence, prudence recommended that the names of "general
intelligence" or "general ability" should be replaced by the non-committal
letter of the alphabet g. A further reason for preferring the bare letter
is that the terms "general intelligence" or "general ability" are apt to sug-
gest some separate mental power capable of existing on its own account,
whereas in truth no such "general ability" has ever been found apart from
some "special ability," which constitutes the other factor and has been de-
noted by s. The two factors are, for the general theory at any rate,
nothing more than two values derived from one and the same real thing;
this itself is the whole score obtained by any individual for the whole of
some concrete mental operation. To pass from either abstract value, g
or s, to any underlying separate entity is the task, not of the general theory,
but at most of the explanatory sub-theories. However, in whatever way we
name them, the theorem that two such factors as g and s ensue when, and
only when, the tetrad differences are zero is no longer disputed by any-
one.
What may be called another pillar of the general theory is the method
which has been devised for comparing g and s with respect to their com-
parative influences or "weights" in any ability. The result of using this
method has been to show that these comparative "weights" differ from one
ability to another very largely ; sometimes g is prepotent, sometimes s. This,
too, is a matter that can no longer be contested.
There remains a sixth and last pillar. So far as the preceding account
has gone, division of a person's test score into the said two parts has only
been shown to be theoretically possible. But a method was also invented
to carry out the division even in actual practice. The process suggested
was, in fact, an extremely simple one. It consisted in testing very numer-
ous different abilities which may even be selected at random, and then
taking a mean of all the results. Throughout such a hotch-potch of tests
the person's <7, being always the same, will continue to exercise its influ-
ence undisturbed; thus, if it be larger than that of another person, it will
reinforce this advantage with every different ability taken into account;
whereas the ^'s, since these change in magnitude freely from one ability to
another, will on an average have much the same size for him as for anyone
else. In the long run, then, a person's score will be dominated by, and
therefore afford a measure of, his g alone. The principle is the same as
that of composite portraiture; here many photographs are taken of differ-
ent individuals from the same point of view. Then the printing is done
on the same paper from each negative in turn (from each very briefly).
The total effect is to bring into prominence whatever characters the per-
sons have in common, and to leave only a trace of whatever varies from one
individual to another.
344 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
Between one or two years after the present writer had proposed this-
hotch-potch procedure of measuring g^ it was adopted in actual practice by
Binet. For he threw together very numerous tests in an unsystematic
fashion (22, pp. 24, 68), calling the whole collection a "scale." His
usage of these tests amounted, in substance, to taking their mean result,
which he called the person's "intellectual level." His only fundamental
addition to the proceeding work on the theory of factors — but an addition
of great value — was his standardization of this "level" for age. His scale
and others on the same hotch-potch principle (even without standardiza-
tion for age and with no pretense at any psychological system) had quick
and immense success. During the quarter of a century that has since
flowed by, hundreds of thousands of persons have been tested in such a
manner. Even the name of "general ability" with its supplement of
"special ability" have become household words. And if the testers have
not recognized whence these concepts originated, if they have overlooked
that this hotch-potch procedure — otherwise arbitrary, meaningless, and
even ridiculous — was really, though tacitly, borrowed from the theory of
g, these past omissions on their part do not alter the present fact that g is
still the only thing that their procedure can rationally be shown to measure,
even approximately.
We see, then, that the concept of g has the characteristic of springing es-
sentially out of the results of actual testing; in this sense it may be called
internal or autochthonous to them. Consequently, I would urge with great-
est emphasis that it should not be confused with any concept of "intelli-
gence" derived from external considerations, be these psychological, philo-
sophical, educational, biological, or otherwise. The g may or may not even-
tually turn out to conform to any such concept, but certainly cannot be as-
sumed to do so without evidence. This point may become of vital import-
ance even for immediate practical purposes. For instance, when considering
whether a test is a good one or not. Good for what? For measuring
scholastic educability? Or adaptibility to new situations? Or the power
to break up a complex and properly evaluate its parts? Or simply to
measure ^? The replies to all such different questions are by no means
bound to be always the same.
Such, then, is the general theory of two factors with its six foundation
pillars: correlation coefficients; calculated deviations of tetrad differences
from zero; observation of these deviations; proof of the two factors; their
relative weights in abilities; and their actual measurements in individuals.
None, of these six is in the least assumptive ; every one of them is a matter
of rigorous demonstration. And not one of them appears at the present
day to be seriously challenged by any psychologist of competence. Those
who still seem to oppose them do so only by mixing them up with the
"sub-theories" which seek to explain them, — and which, no doubt, do
introduce controversial matter.
Still, if I am here mistaken, and some psychologist does still challenge
any of these six pillars of the general theory, may these words of mine
stimulate him to come frankly forward and state his case !
C. SPEARMAN 345
III. Explanations of g and s
From the general theory of g and s, let us now turn to the sub-theories
which attempt to explain them. Of these only three have hitherto received
sufficient advocacy to make their consideration here worth while.
The first of them consists in taking g as measuring some quality which
characterizes the whole nervous system of any individual in a manner or to
an extent peculiar to himself. This was the original view of the present
writer, the proposed quality being described as the comparative "plastic-
ity" of each nervous system (13). A similar view seems still to be held
by many authorities, though without any attempt that I can find to indi-
cate in a more definite manner what sort of quality is intended. Possi-
bly Freeman (6) would rank himself here.
The first objection to this view is its vagueness. Some opponents of
it have gone so far as to declare that in speaking of the "plasticity" of the
nervous system the problem of g is not solved, but only stated. Further,
this view leads on to the difficulty of imagining any quality of the brain —
or mind, for that matter — which could reasonably be supposed to consti-
tute the general individual difference. Of any such general quality nothing
would appear to be known in either physiology or anatomy. The micro-
scopic structure of the brain shows wide differences from one region to
another region ; but it has not revealed any characteristic qualitative dif-
ference from the whole brain of one individual to the whole brain of an-
other.
The second main explanation — and the one now preferred by the present
writer — is that the brain (or a large portion of it) possesses some total
quantitative characteristic, which works as if there were a constant output
of energy, distributed to different constituents of the brain in varying
proportions.
To enter into the merits and demerits of this energic explanation would
carry us far beyond the scope of the present work; especially, as the chief
arguments for it do not derive from individual psychology (which we are
discussing now) but come rather from general psychology. As for the
contrary arguments, these also have come mainly from another field, physi-
ology. We may, however, note in passing that this last or physiological
evidence has just undergone almost a revolution. From being the strong-
est opponent of the energic explanation it has suddenly — under the inspira-
tion of Lashley (14) — becomes its strongest supporter. Furthermore, some
physiological results have very recently been published by Travis (29),
which, if verified, will be epoch-making. And his explanation — as he him-
self writes explicitly — falls quite within the scope of the energic view in
the broad sense in which this is favored by the present writer. But when
once an "energy" has to be granted for any reason, it must needs be sup-
plemented by some sort or description of "engines." This, so far as the
brain is concerned, would naturally be supplied by its different parts or con-
stituents that have special functions. In terms of the two-factor theory,
these engines would inevitably constitute, or form part of, the s\.
The third main explanation is closely akin to the view of Herbart.
§\
346 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
For it takes the brain to be divisible functionally into a very large num-
ber of elements vv^hose total effect is the sum of the elemental effects. But
the elements are clearly no longer the Herbartian ideas. As to v^^hat they
are intended to be instead, very little appears to have been even suggested.
Sometimes, hov^ever, a hint seems to be made at the cerebral neurons,
whose number is, of course, prodigious. At other times, as in some w^rit-
ings of Thorndike, the favored elements appear to be the points of junc-
tion betv^^een one neuron and another; these points, of course, are far more
numerous still. Yet a third and particularly interesting suggestion is that
of Thomson, according to which the required elements may be found in
the "genes" which are commonly held responsible for mental and physi-
cal heredity.
Now, the observed regularity in correlation coefficients (that is to say,
the tendency to zero tetrad differences) would certainly be satisfied well
enough by such a summative effect of extremely numerous hypothetical
elements, each individually being of very minute size. In this case, the g
of an individual by no means ceases to exist ; it simply represents the mean
value of the elements falling to his lot. But this explanation of the zero
tetrad differences — unlike that supplied by the theory of energy and en-
gines— involves some further assumptions. The main one is that each
individual should be endowed with a very large random sample of the
elements. Now we know from statistics that the means of all large random
samples tend to equal one another; so that, on the preceding assumption,
all persons would be about equally "intelligent." This conclusion not only
is revolting to common sense, but seems to be definitely disproved by such
work as that of Thurstone (28).
Be this as it may, the wisest course at present is not to set these rival
explanations by the ears, but rather to see how far and with what advan-
tage they admit of mutual reconciliation.
To begin with, none of them could hope to satisfy the criterion of zero
tetrad differences quite exactly. Even the mere calculation of correlational
coefficients involves some approximations for which allowance would be
needed. Yet more disturbing are the approximations involved in calcu-
lating the sampling errors of the tetrad differences. But most serious of
all is the possibility — in fact, almost certainty — that our representation of
every test score by such an extremely simple function of g and s, as de-
scribed above, is itself merely a first approximation to the truth (in accord-
ance with Taylor's theorem). Among the numerous reasons for believing
this to be the case, an obvious one is that test scores, like examination marks,
are almost always obtained by some more or less artificial device. This is
sure to complicate matters. The test scored will not be a simple but a com-
plex function of any such underlying factors as g and s; hence, the present
simple formulation must needs be more or less inexact. If so, the same
will probably be true of the zero tetrad differences criterion, which led
to this simple formula.
Besides this margin of inexactitude for all the explanations alike, another
reason for not pressing their rival claims too jealously is that they are not
C. SPEARMAN 347
even mutually exclusive. The two proposed characters, uniform qualita-
tive and total quantitative, respectively, may perhaps run parallel with one
another; whilst either or both may possibly be served by large random
samples of minute elements. Quite unfounded is, then, the common view
that the three rival explanations of the factors are to be held pistol-like at
the heads of psychologists, demanding an instant and final choice between
them. Before choosing any, we should at least proceed to examine all the
procurable evidence.
Nevertheless, no such hesitation is needed, or even feasible, as regards
the factors themselves. These, as we have seen, are adequately proved
already. And it is they, as we are going to see, that give access to all the
further information required; information not only helpful towards ex-
plaining the factors, but even towards measuring them more correctly than
is done at present; and above all, towards discovering and measuring all
the other main constituents in a person's mental make-up.
IV. Qualitative Laws of Noegenesis
So far we have been considering two very different things: on the one
hand, the "general theory," which leads to the factors g and s; on the other,
the "sub-theories," which try to explain them. We have noted that, con-
trary to the common belief, the general theory taken apart from the sub-
theories is no longer really in dispute. But have we not here fallen from
Scylla into Charybdis ? Are not g and s, thus divorced from their explana-
tion, left devoid of scientific significance ?
Some such view finds frequent expression ; the g is declared to be some-
thing that cannot be described; and this reproach would indeed be valid
enough, if what we have so far seen constituted the whole of the business.
But really, between the general theory and the sub-theories there intervenes
a very large middle stage. This uses the general theory with its almost
meaningless factors as a tool, whilst it takes the sub-theories with their
hypotheses as its goal ; itself, it is neither meaningless nor hypothetical, but
consists essentially of actual observations. By means of these observa-
tions, then, the meaning of the factors is gradually but surely determined.
And the farther this determination goes, the smaller and less dangerous
becomes the eventual jump in the dark when the final stage does arrive
of explanatory hypothesis.
This progress through the three stages constitutes in fact the very es-
sence of all investigation by means of factors. To begin with, these fac-
tors are hardly at all defined psychologically, but only proved and located
statistically. There is not, as in the older and still current psychology,
first an ability conceived and then its measurement sought. Instead, there
is first a measurement made and then the appropriate ability conceived.
All this is what has been meant by calling the method of factors a Coper-
nican revolution. If anyone is shocked at it, he may perhaps be heartened
by remembering that, after all, the physical sciences are in no better plight.
The original discovery of electricity, for instance, consisted in nothing
more than observing that certain attractions and repulsions of amber, paper,
348 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
and so forth, occur in such a manner as to suggest one uniform cause. This
cause the investigators proceeded to call "electricity" ; such a name had no
whit more definitely meaning than our g at the stage of the general theory.
Soon, however, electrical explanations did begin to be proposed; for ex-
ample, the hypothesis of two fluids, positive and negative ; such hypotheses
are quite comparable with ours of energy, or even of samples. But be-
sides trying such guesses at the inward nature of electricity, investigators
devoted themselves to finding out the conditions under which it makes its
appearance. And the knowledge of these conditions is what really con-
stitutes the main portion of electrical science. The "electricity," originally
nothing but a denotative word, has served as a body upon which subse-
quently more and more meaning has crystallized. And just such a
development of knowledge of actual facts has been the main work about
g for the last score of years.
Now, the prime condition for the appearance of g in any ability might
naturally be expected to lie in the quality of the cognitive processes which
it involves. What, then, is the general qualitative character of the mental
performances wherein the criterion of tetrad differences has been satisfied,
so that g must be present?
How remote is this question from the older one which perplexed sym-
posium after symposium of the leading psychologists! Here in this new
question is no inquiry as to the nature of some "intelligence" without ever
agreeing first as to what this name is intended to denote ! Instead, there is
an investigation of something which, if not described, has at any rate been
definitely located. Nor is here the reply one derived from perhaps genial,
but certainly incommunicable, "intuition," psychological or biological. In-
stead it is a plain answer to be founded upon the most complete qualitative
and quantitative observations, which anyone else can verify in detail for
himself.
This plain answer, so far as present knowledge goes, is that g occurs
only when the abilities concerned are what has been called "noegenetic" ;
this word being the collective name for the following three laws, which
are at the same time processes.'*
The first may be formulated by saying that a person has more or less
power to observe what goes on in his own mind. He not only feels, but
knows that he feels ; he not only strives, but knows that he strives ; he not
only knows, but knows that he knows.
Turning to the second law — this states that, when a person has in mind
any two or more ideas (using this word to embrace any items of mental con-
*For the fullest account of these three laws, see (21). For a much briefer and
simpler exposition, see (22, pp. 164-167).
The title of "noegenetic" is given to all processes that possess two virtues con-
nected respectively with the words "noetic" and "genetic." By "noetic" is here
meant all knowing (perception or thought) immediately based upon adequate
grounds. "Genetic" covers ail knowing in so far as it generates any content
originally (that is to say, exclusive of mere reproduction). Evidence has been
given that — almost reversely to the usual opinion — these two virtues are strictly
concomitant; every noetic process is genetic and vice versa.
C. SPEARMAN 349
tent, whether perceived or thought of), he has more or less power to
bring to mind any relations that essentially hold between them.
Proceeding to the third and last of the laws — this enounces that, when
a person has in mind any idea together with a relation, he has more or less
power to bring up to mind the correlative idea.
Proof that these three laws suffice to measure the actual scope of g has
been given in detail elsewhere (22, Chap. XI). But some indication to
this effect may readily be obtained by examining any of those tests of
"general intelligence" or "general ability" which are in most common usage.
Conspicuous here, for instance, is the test where two words are given and
the testee has to say whether their meanings are the same or different.
Obviously, success in the test depends on cognizing the relations of same-
ness and difference. It is a clear case of our second noegenetic law. Or
again, if anyone were asked to mention some other test employed very
often, the choice would probably fall upon that in which a word is given
and the testee has to respond with the word which means just the opposite
— an obvious case of our third noegenetic law. On demand for yet another
very frequent test, it would as likely as not be that of "analogies." Here
the question put to the testee might, for instance, be: "A glove is to a hand
as a boot is to what?" To answer it, he has first to see how a glove is
related to a hand, and then he has to apply this relation to a boot and so
arrive at the idea of foot. The first part of the test involves the educing
of a relation; the second part, that of a correlate. Among the next most
common tests is the understanding of paragraphs. Here all the words are
usually intelligible enough when taken singly; the crux lies in understand-
ing them in their mutual relations. Much the same may be said for the
old, but still admirable, completion test of Ebbinghaus. Again, the much
prized test of vocabulary obviously appeals to the testee's store of con-
cepts; and the formation of these depends almost entirely upon cognizing
relations.^
With these precisely defined noegenetic processes may be contrasted the
high-flying definitions of intelligence a priori, as, for instance, the ability
of the individual "to adapt himself adequately to relatively new situations
in life," or "to inhibit or re-define instinctive adjustments in the light of
imaginally experienced trial or error." What particular connection have
these with the ability to see that good is the opposite to bad?
Nevertheless, we are still only at the beginning of our inquiries. After
seeing that g falls within the domain of noegenesis, we must go on to the
far more searching question as to whether it extends throughout this do-
main. And in point of fact, as the reader will have noticed, the examples
^So I cannot but think that Thorndike, like Homer, nodded when he singled out
the understanding of paragraphs and the extent of vocabulary as being tests into
which "the use of relations" does not enter! Note also that the noegenetic laws do
not talk vaguely about "using" relations, but indicate precisely the two manners —
and sole two — in which their usage is possible. And such a precise understanding
of these two manners would seem indispensable for treating the relations effectively.
350 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
quoted are always from the second and third laws, never from the first.
This seems to represent fairly enough the general state of present knowl-
edge. Up to now, no method seems to have been devised whereby the
ability indicated by the first law can be tested at all. As yet, then, the.
evidence speaks neither for nor against this law involving g. We can cope \
with the question only in so far as it concerns the second and third noege-,;
netic laws. Do these manifest g throughout their respective domains? To|
answer this, we need some way of submitting these domains to a general!
survey; we must be able to divide them up into regions and sub-regions,
searching for the presence of g in each.
Now, the theory of noegenesis — alone, I believe, among all the current
doctrines of psychology — does afford such an exact and comprehensive
survey of the whole cognitive area. To begin with, the cases both of the
second law and of the third admit of being divided up according to the
nature of the relation involved. Of these relations three are "ideal,"
being those of resemblance, evidence, and conjunction. Seven are "real":
those of space, time, objectivity, identity, attribution, causation, and con-
stitution. Evidence has been brought that g is manifested by every one
of these ten classes (22, Chap. XI). We may note, in particular, that
it is by no means confined to what many authorities have adopted as the
peculiar sphere of the "intellect," namely, the operations of "reasoning,"
which involve essentially the relation of "evidence." The latter does in-
deed often occur among tests, as shown in the following example:
"All Russians travelled with Danes, some Danes travelled with
Dutch, all Dutch travelled with Spaniards. Can you conclude
as to whether Russians travelled with Dutch ?"
But on the other hand, the test of opposites, for instance, involves no rela-
tion of evidence; only that of likeness. For an example where relations
mainly involved are neither of these two, reasoning or likeness, we may
take the following:
"Warmth is to stove as sharp is to what? cut? knife? pain?"
Obviously, warmth is an attribute of stove, as sharp is of knife; the re-
lation in either case, then, is that of "attribution."
Having thus mapped out the whole area of noegenesis into divisions
according to different classes of relations involved, we can now go on to
make cross-divisions, according to the different classes of mental content
related (the "fundaments" of the relations). About each such cross-
division we can ask whether it manifests g. Here we reach a point on
which mental testers do seem to have expressed their views definitely
enough. Basing their theories on difference of mental content, they have
divided up ability into separate "levels" or otherwise named water-tight
compartments. The most frequent and important of these tendencies has
been to make a separate compartment for an "intellectual" or "abstrac-
tive" or "verbal" kind of ability as contrasted with the perceptual kind.
This intellectual ability has been taken to be the peculiar and sole prov-
ince of the test of "general intelligence," that is, g. But for such a de-
C. SPEARMAN 351
limitation the authors appear to present no definite evidence. They do
not employ the means supplied by the method of factors, and no other
means of procuring definite evidence would appear to be known. When
we do proceed to utilize this method, which alone is effective, all these
divisions of cognitive ability into different levels and compartments prove
to be illusory. In particular, the self-same g has been discovered in sen-
sory perception as in "intellectual" thought. Indeed these two have been
found to correlate up to the high value of .9.® The present author is even
inclined to think the sensory perception, when properly handled, will even-
tually make the best of all tests for g. Here again, then, the presence of
g appears to characterize eductive processes universally.
If the preceding question was searching, still more so is the following one.
We no longer ask simply whether g is present, but in what degree it is so.
Nevertheless here again the factor method appears able to supply the in-
formation required. For this method actually gives the correlation be-
tween any ability on the one hand, and pure g on the other. In this cor-
relation we have a precise measurement of how far the ability and g coin-
cide. It thus indicates that which has been called the "saturation" of the
ability with g.
The very exactitude of this method quickly revealed that such satura-
tion involves many complications, for which careful allowance must be
made. Among these are the following: the manner of selecting the
group of subjects for investigation; the suitability of the tests in respect
to difficulty; accidents in the procedure; and variation in the "breadth"
of the ability at issue (22, Chap. XII). But none of these obstacles has
been found insuperable. And investigations along such lines have indi-
cated some theorems of exceptional importance, though doubtless still in
need of much verification and even rectification.
One is that all the different classes of relations involve g to about the
same extent; not only do they all introduce g but they do so in about equal
degrees.
Another of these theorems is that the influences diminishing the satura-
tion with g fall mainly into three categories. The first consists in de-
pendence of the tests on the testee's sensory organs (receptors or cerebral
tracts). For example, a test would tend to have only a small correlation
with g if it were given orally in a very low tone of voice, so that the suc-
cess of the test would appreciably depend on the testee's acuteness of hear-
ing. The second diminishing influence is dependence on the subject's
motor organs (effectors or cerebral tracts). A test becomes the less
diagnostic of g the more the success depends on muscular strength, speed,
or even dexterity. The third kind of diminishing influence was less ex-
pected. It consists in dependence of the test on the person's powers of
retentivity. One might easily imagine that the ability to retain, no less
than the ability to educe, must largely depend on general psychophysio-
logical health, so that the power of retention and that of eduction should
be highly correlated ; but at present the experimental results, so far as they
go, indicate nothing of the sort. Here, incidentally, we have evidence
'See a very important work shortly to be published by W. Line.
352 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
of how gravely misleading is the common definition of what is measured I
by the tests as being "the capacity to learn." For learning as defined in
any dictionary would certainly seem to include retentiveness.
Yet another fundamental theorem, which at the present stage of re-
search, however, can hardly claim to be more than a venturesome sugges-
tion, is that after elimination of the said sensory, motor, and retentive in-
fluences— as also, of course, all merely accidental disturbances — the cor-
relation of every eductive ability with pure g approaches to being perfect.
The corollary would be that all localized function of the brain, cere-
brum, or cortex — in a word, all "engines" (22, p. 133) — deal solely
with sensation, movement, and retention. Herewith, we find ourselves
inveigled into some of the greatest difficulties of physiological psychology.
The evidence gleaned by our method is so far undeniably weak. But it
has the advantage of being obtained along new lines.
Anyway, we have perhaps seen enough to show that the study of human
abilities has been — and in the most fundamental matters — advanced by two
things; the general theory of two factors, and the doctrine of noegenesis.
These two have cooperated as the right leg with the left. It would be
deplorable, then, if the use of these two aids to research were confined to
any particular psychological school. That this still happens would appear
to be largely the effect of the great fallacy mentioned above — the suppo-
sition that either the general theory of two factors or that of noegenesis
depends on anything assumptive, hypothetical, or otherwise fundamentally
controversial. Both these "theories" deserve this name only in its orig-
inal Greek meaning of actual observation ; they represent nothing fictitious
at all, but only the result of observing systematically and comprehen-
sively.
V. Quantitative Laws
Evidently enough, however, the noegenetic laws we have so far been
considering can represent only one-half of any complete scheme of cog-
nition. They are purely qualitative and indicate what kind of noegenetic
processes may occur. As their indispensable supplement, then, they re-
quired further and quantitative laws to say under what conditions these
processes do occur.
At once the problem faces us: What do we mean by cognitive "quan-
tity?" To this, the theory of noegenesis has replied that such quantity
has two dimensions, clearness and speed (21, Chap. XI). And this pair
fits in well enough with the actual practice of measurement. For here
also we find two dimensions, which are the goodness of the performance
and the speed with which it is done. To bring the theory and the practice
together, we need only assume that the inward virtue of clear cognition
can be inferred from the outward virtue of the good performance; here
in mental science, as in physical, measurement has to be effected vicari-
ously.
Having thus arrived at showing how mental tests come to have not
one but two measurements of success, namely, goodness and speed, we may
C. SPEARMAN 353
go on to ask in which of the two it is that g manifests itself. Assertions
on this point have been, and still are, abundant enough. The most usual
trend of them is that, whereas the true intelligence manifests itself in the
goodness of a performance, the intelligence of g as tested is mainly a matter
of speed. Now, as regards the a priori concepts of "true" intelligence, these
appear too multifarious and equivocal for scientific handling at all. But as
regards the tested g, here the method of factors does supply definite and
detailed observations. The upshot has been to show that g has both dimen-
sions, goodness and speed. The two virtues appear, in fact, to be alterna-
tive manifestations of one and the same underlying functional unity. In
general, a test can be so framed and conducted as to direct the testee's g
predominantly into either channel at the expense of the other one [the
comparative advantages of these two procedures belong to the topic of
practical technique, which does not concern us here (27, Chap. XIV)].
From this general concept of cognitive quantity and from the problems
which it raises, let us pass on to the general laws which prescribe the con-
ditions by which this quantity is regulated. Of these there are six, the
first being as follows:
"Every mind tends to keep its simultaneous output constant in
quantity, however varying in quality" (22, Chap. XV).
The classical case — noted already by Nemesius — is that of looking at a
dozen or so marbles lying together on the floor. Any four or five can be
seen distinctly at the same time, but never more than about this number.
Much greater exactitude was introduced into such experiments by Leh-
mann (15). And outstanding at the present day is the corroborative work
of Wirth (34).
What is the connection between this quantity of output and the pre-
viously discussed clearness of cognition? The two seem to be at bottom
the same. The quantity of output is, in essence, nothing else than the
quantity of clearness. But now we may note further that within the di-
mensions of clearness itself there are two subdivisions; these are the same
as those of physical energy; they consist, that is to say, of intensity and
extensity. Taking the case of the marbles again — it is quite possible to
perceive simultaneously not merely five, but dozens, and even hundreds.
Then, however, these will be perceived in an extremely vague manner
(much too vague to allow of being counted) ; the great extensity will have
been purchased at the price of little intensity. If, reversing matters, ex-
treme clearness be demanded, then the number of marbles attaining to this
will not even be five but only one. Altogether, then, cognitive quanity
may be said to have three dimensions: intensity, extensity, and speed.
(Even here, it would be easy to show that physical science is analogous.)
All these facts supplied by the law of output raise corresponding prob-
lems about cognitive ability. In particular, is g manifested in the extensity
or in the intensity? Observation again seems to answer readily, both.
For either an extensive or an intensive eduction may be effective in
measuring g; there is little difference between the two (22, Chap. XV).
After the law of output comes that of retentivity. But this law has itself
354 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
been shown to divide up into two that have little connection with one an-
other. The first of them, termed the law of dispositions, runs as follows:
"Cognitive events by occurring establish dispositions which
facilitate their recurrence" (9, p. 115).
Especially important among such dispositions are those by which any men-
tal events, through accompanying each other on one occasion, acquire a
tendency to do so again later on ; in a word, they form "associations," or
"bonds." For example, when the sight of lightning has been frequently
followed by the sound of thunder, thereafter such a sight, even if not
actually followed by such a sound, tends to reproduce the idea of it.
How, then, is this law of dispositions related to g and j? We have here
two kinds of problems, dynamic and static. The former include the mo-
mentous question as to whether a person's g or his s can be increased by
the virtue of retentivity ; or, what comes to nearly the same thing, by
means of practice. This is almost equivalent to the old crux as to the
relative influences of nature and nurture. In spite of its difficulty, this
problem would seem to be obtaining some light from the theory of two
factors. There has been a large amount of evidence to the effect that the
practice or retentivity can largely improve s but cannot in general cause
any increase of g (22, Chap. XV).
Turning to the static problems — does the person with the greatest amount
of g tend to have the greatest retentivity? As we have already seen, the
answer so far gleaned from the theory of two factors has been unex-
pectedly in the negative. The two endowments, amount of g and reten-
tivity of dispositions, would appear to vary almost independently. Unani-
mous on this point have been the experimental results of Hamid (9), Mc-
Crae (17), Perera (19), Strasheim (24), and Walters (30), not to
mention others.
The second division of retentivity is that belonging to the law of inertia
or persistence. It runs as follows:
"Cognitive processes always begin and cease more gradually
than their (apparent) causes" (22, Chap. XVII).
A simple but drastic instance is when, after some painful experience, one
cannot for a long time afterwards, as it is said, "get it out of one's head.^'
Dynamically, the influence of this law has shown itself in disturbing
cognitive activities when these are immediately preceded by others in some
way incompatible with them. Statically, the inertia and the g would
appear to be nearly or quite independent; that is to say, a high degree of
inertia may with almost equal probability be found in a person having a
large or a small degree of g. Once more, it is surprising to find that two
such general characteristics of the brain have so little interdependence.
But the evidence is still far from conclusive.
Acting in the reverse direction to the law of retentivity is that of fa-
tigue. Its formulation runs:
"The occurrence of any cognitive event produces a tendency
opposed to its occurrence afterwards" (22, Chap. XVIII).
C. SPEARMAN 355
Examples are abundant on every side, whether in work or in play, in
industry or in education. After continuing a strenuous performance
long enough, we tend to do it more slowly and less well. Dynamically,
fatigue appears to influence both g and s. Any hard work lowers subse-
quent ability not only for that particular kind of work but also for every
other kind; so that to this extent g is reduced. But when the subsequent
work is of the same kind, it is affected in higher degree, so that to this
extent there is also a reduction of j. As regards the static problems,
however, we again find — but the evidence is still weak — a surprising inde-
pendence between g and fatiguability. The correlations so far obtained
have been near to zero (22; Chap. XVIII).
The next law has been expressed in the following formula:
"The intensity of cognition is controlled by conation" (22, Chap.
XX).
Here again we are assailed by numerous questions both dynamic and
static. How far does the measure obtained for the person's g depend on
the effort he puts forth? And similarly, about his j's? Again, does
his superiority depend on being favorably disposed towards the testing
situation? Or upon strength of the instincts which the tests call into
action? Or upon mere power to attend? And possibly connected with
such questions is the further one as to why, if g is always one and the same
thing, we are continually being obliged to differentiate one sort of intel-
ligence from another; such as the "quick" from the "profound" kind, or
"originality" from "common sense"? On all these matters, more or less
information has already been gleaned by the theory of two factors. With
respect to the first of them, for instance, there have recently been several
investigations as to how far a high score for g depends on the intensity of
the effort made. The result has been unexpectedly in the negative. Of
course, some effort is needed to get a good score (or perhaps to cognize
at all) ; but no more is required, it would appear, than is readily exerted
by any normal person. High degrees of it seem to result principally in
increasing the speed of the performance at the expense of its quality (32,
33).
There remains yet another quantitative law, which in a sense lies deeper
than all the others. It may run as follows:
"Every manifestation of the preceding four quantitative laws is
if superposed upon, as its ultimate basis, certain purely physiologi-
cal influences" (22, Chap. XXV-XXIII).
Suppose a person's activity on any occasion — say, when reading some
poetry — to be most favorably conditioned in respect of all the other quan-
titative laws; that of output is satisfied because no distraction is affect-
ing him; that of dispositions, because he has read the poem often previ-
ously; that of inertia, because he has read it only a few seconds before;
that of fatigue, because he has been as far as possible resting himself ; that
of conation, because he is now exerting himself to the utmost. In spite
of all these advantages he may still make poor headway with the poem.
356 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
because he is too young, or very ill, or half asleep, or congenitally a moron.
Here, in age, health, heredity, and so on, we encounter influences where
pure psychology reaches its last limits. If any causal explanation is to be
supplied, this can come only from psychophysiology. The facts them-
selves to be explained, however, can be observed and studied on their own
account, that is to say, psychologically. And very numerous, accordingly,
are the investigations of this kind which have been carried out in respect
to s. To enter into details, however, would far exceed our present scope.
Looking back over this summary review of the quantitative laws of
noegenesis, we may venture to raise again claims similar to those for the
laws of quality. Once more, the doctrine of noegenesis in most intimate
combination with the general theory of two factors has produced definite
information about human ability. And this information has not been
confined to matters of mere detail (these we have had to leave unmentioned,
for want of space). It has managed to cover, more or less effectively,
the most fundamental problems.
VI. Broad Factors
Not yet by a long way, however, have we come to the end of our "mid-
dle stage" ; that which intervenes between the general theory of ff and s,
on the one hand, and the hypothetical explanation of these, on the other.
So far, we have only taken into consideration the cases where the cri-
terion of the two factors is perfectly satisfied (within the limits of the
experimental error). What about the exceptional cases where it is not
satisfied ?
To start with, a word may be said on the not uncommon practice of
putting up such exceptional cases as an argument against the theory of
two factors. This practice is quite unjustifiable. If the criterion is
really sometimes satisfied and sometimes not, then such a discrepancy
should only spur us on to discover what are the conditions to which it is
due. In general, the onus of accounting for these exceptional cases
should rest upon those who allege them to exist.
Now, a few of the exceptional cases were discovered at the very be-
ginning of the whole concern with factors. They arose from the four
following correlations: that between Latin grammar and Latin transla-
tion; between French prose and French dictation; between counting let-
ters one at a time and three at a time ; and between two nearly identical
tests of cancelling the letters of the alphabet. A conspicuous feature which
did not, and could not, escape notice in every one of these four pairs was
that the two abilities in it were extremely akin ; they could be said to be
partly the same, or to "overlap." And obviously enough, such overlap-
ping supplied good and sufficient reason for the criterion of tetrad differ-
ences not being satisfied.^
^To see this, imagine first any two abilities to satisfy the criterion, so that they
have the same ff but quite different s's; the likeness between them will derive
solely from the ff they have. If now, without altering the ff, we make the s's
overlap, this will obviously increase the correlation between these two abilities
without altering any of the other correlations. Hence the criterion is bound to
fail, just as it has been found to do.
C. SPEARMAN 357
That constituent in respect to which (over and above g) any group of
abilities overlap each other has been called a "group factor;" it invests the
group vrith more or less functional unity. But in order really to have scien-
tific significance the group or overlapping must not be confined to such
an extremely narrow range as the counting of dots, or as the cancelling
of letters; it must extend over, and thus confer some functional unity on,
a range broad enough to be important.
In this way we are brought back to the "faculties" again, which are
still playing a large part in educational, medical, and industrial psychol-
ogy. For each of these faculties, as we saw, has been tacitly taken to con-
stitute just such a functional unity; and here the overlapping factor, if it
really existed, would certainly embrace a range of very great breadth
and importance. But such overlap had been only an assumption. No
evidence had been obtained, or even appeared to be obtainable. This de-
ficiency was now, however, made good by the theory of two factors. The
long missing link was at last supplied, and it showed that in the immense
majority of cases such unifying broad factors did not exist. This nega-
tive result has again and again been pushed amazingly far. Take, for
example, the formboards of Goddard and of Dearborn, respectively. The
former test required each of a large number of blocks to be fitted by the
subject as fast as possible into an aperture made to corresponding dimen-
sions. The other test differs from the foregoing solely in that two or
more blocks had to be fitted together into the same aperture. This seem-
ingly slight difference between the two tests turned out to make them
wholly independent of one another (except in so far as each of them in-
volved a certain amount of g) ', of any group factors there appeared to be
no trace (22, p. 228).
Still, among all such negative results there do "stick fiery off" some rare
but brilliant exceptions. Pre-eminent among these has been the already
mentioned law of inertia. For although this law extends over all mental
operations whatsoever, nevertheless a common factor (not g) has
been found to run throughout (22, Chap. XVII). This common factor
has shown itself, moreover, to be unitary, in that it satisfies the criterion
of tetrad differences. On such grounds, this factor seems to be legiti-
mately called a second "general" one. It in no way clashes with g —
nor even, as has been said, mars its theoretical beauty — for it is of a fun-
damentally different kind. The two only supplement each other. In-
ertia does not, as g does, express any ability to educe new mental content;
nor does it even, like reproduction, involve ability to reproduce old mental
content ; it is not usually measurable by any single performance at all, but
solely by the disturbance that the lag in one performance causes in the
start of another one.
This second general factor has been denoted by the letter p, to indicate
that it appears provisionally to be corrected with what has generally been
called the "type" of "perseveration," or "secondary function," or "intro-
version." Still, too much credit should not be assigned to any such
earlier doctrine. For these "types" have in truth been based on no better
358 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
evidence than all the "faculties," which turned out to be so illusory. That
the functional unity of the perseveration or introversion was formerly a
mere unsupported guess is shown by the fact that the domain then as-
signed to it has now been proved to be altogether erroneous (22, Chap.
XVII). The method of factors alone has really supplied all the solid
evidence for both the existence and the domain of the functional unity; and
in doing so it has picked out this inertia in extraordinary contrast to all
the other alleged types or faculties, which it has uncompromisingly re-
jected.
To explain this second general factor, the suggestion has been made of
connecting it with the first one, by attributing both to the same psycho-
physiological energy, but to different aspects or dimensions of this. The
g would thus represent the degree of energy available for use in any of
the engines ; p, its inertia on transfer from one engine to another. This
double use of the concept of energy leaves it, of course, no less hypo-
thetical than before. But as a working hypothesis, it acquires additional
credit by being able to deal with both the general factors simultaneously
and harmoniously.
Besides these two general factors, there has been found evidence for one,
and only one, more; chiefly through the researches of Flugel (5). As is
well known, the amount of mental output of any person, although tending
to keep a constant level on the whole, is continually oscillating about this
level. And this oscillation has been shown not to be wholly due to
changes in the difficulty of the work; there remains a large residue which
can be explained only by changes in the efficiency of the worker. To this
discovery, in itself of little moment, the theory of two factors has made
a vital addition; namely, that, although the oscillations appear to cover
the whole range of cognitive activity, still throughout them there runs
something common and unitary. The evidence is the same as that for g
and p. In this way we are led to the third general factor; to it has been
given the name of o (22, Chap. XIX). Its practical importance remains
as yet chiefly a matter of surmise. As regards explaining it, here once
more the concept of energy has been found usable. As g denotes its
amount and p its inertia, so may o denote the unsteadiness of its supply.
Probably, it is some manifestation of fatigue.
Another peculiarly interesting case — involving the possibility, not in-
deed of further quite general factors, but at any rate of one or more very
broad ones — is that of verbal ability. For although we have already seen
that this by no means covers the whole area of g, still it may possibly have
a broad area of its own which g does not cover. The answer afforded by
experiment seems to depend largely upon the sort of persons tested. If
these have all received approximately the same education, then no such
extremely broad factors have any considerable influence. But if, on the
contrary, the education of the persons has differed widely — say, some have
come from much better schools than others, or some have done much read-
ing at home, or some speak a second language at home — then such broad
factors, according to our results, do attain to degrees of much importance
C. SPEARMAN 359
(3, 23), On the other or perceptual side, it may be added, we have found
nothing of the sort : contrary to the common assertion, there has been mani-
fested no very wide non-^ factor in perceptual ability.
Herewith we reach the end of the cases to be here mentioned where
the criterion of zero tetrad differences is not found to be satisfied. This
limitation, however, is only that prescribed by our available space ; we have
had to confine ourselves to the cases of greatest magnitude. Naturally,
these do stand quite isolated. Investigation has revealed several further
ones of more or less inferior importance, chiefly among them being af-
forded by the curious observations about "mechanical ability." For an
account of these further non-conforming cases, as also of their theoretical
significance, reference must be made elsewhere (22, Chaps. X-XX).
As after the section on the qualitative laws and after that on the quan-
titative ones, so here once more after consideration of broad factors, we
seem entitled to claim that definite information of the most fundamental
sort has been gained by the general theory of two factors in conjunction
with the doctrine of noegenesis. And the information has been gained
without the support of any assumption or hypothesis. Accordingly, it can
be, and ought to be, verified, corrected, and utilized by psychologists what-
ever may be the school to which they profess to belong: energists, samp-
lists, or what-not.
VII. Orexis
Naturally enough, the fruitfulness of the general theory of two fac-
tors for the investigation of cognitive abilities suggested that its services
might be turned to the other great side of mental make-up which com-
prises feeling, striving, and the like. Or, in a word, "orexis," as it has
been named by one of those who has done most to increase our knowledge
of it, Aveling.
This extension of the method was accordingly attempted in a very large
investigation made by Webb, and with a success which even surpassed
our expectance. The correlations between different traits of character
were discovered to display a regularity of just the same sort as that al-
ready found between abilities; so that here also, some general factor was
proved to exist. Further observation, still on lines similar to those used
for investigating the nature of g, indicated that this new factor was pro-
visionally describable as "consistency of action, resulting from volition or
will." But to maintain an open mind on this matter pending further
inquiry, it was — like g, p, and o — denoted only by a noncommittal letter
of the alphabet. Still, in order to give at least a hint of its apparent con-
nection with will, the letter chosen was w (31).
Now, to uphold such a factor as "will" seemed at that time to be a
strange anachronism. On few things had modern psychologists been plum-
ing themselves more than on having emancipated themselves from just this
effete superstition, as they regarded it. The dozen years or so, however,
which have lapsed since w was discovered would appear to have brought
only more and more confirmatory evidence. Especially the study of
360 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
mental pathology and of "difficult" children seems to have rendered the ad-
mission of some such factor indispensable. Modern writers seem here once
more to have fallen into the pit of oversimplification. The orectic mechan-
ism, after all, does not consist simply of a number of instincts each fighting
for its own hand. It includes some additional agency to control and co-
ordinate these.
Superficially seen, such a march of science might look like a retreat, a
going-back to the original Charioteer of Plato. But really the movement
has more resembled the ascent of spiral stairs to a place which, though cor-
responding with the starting-point, lies on a higher level. The older view
had been little more than a vague surmise, glorified indeed by poetry, but
incapable of further progress. Whereas the newer view was founded on
positive observation; it admitted of exact verification, and it promised un-
limited further extension.
Accordingly, unlike Plato's Charioteer, the knowledge about Webb's
w was soon carried to a more advanced stage. Garnett, in particular, made
a great step forward on the mathematical side. He showed how to deal not
only with one general factor but with several of them simultaneously. He
thus moved forward from the theory of "two factors" to that of functional
analysis in general (7, 8). And this mathematical extension has since re-^
ceived many further developments such as those contributed by G. H.
Thomson (26), J. R. Thompson (25), Wishart (35), Dodd (4), Black c
(1), Mackie (16), Daniell (2), and especially Kelley (12) and Holzinger r
(10, p. 91, and elsewhere).
The immediate use to which Garnett put his new statistical tool was
to prove that — on taking more of Webb's data into consideration than the
latter had done himself — there was evidence not only of ff and w but also
of yet another factor, which he called c. Subsequent research, however,
would seem to indicate that this c was, after all, only the obverse side to
p, or in other words now-perseveration.
And indeed the four general factors, g, p, o, and zv, would appear suffi-
cient to achieve mental analysis over a very wide region. Among the results
obtained by their means is the explanation of the already mentioned prob-
lem, as to why and how intelligence has been so often and so emphatically
declared to be of various kinds. Evidence has been found that when people
observed in others what they called "profound" intelligence, this could be
resolved into a combination of a large g with a large w. Just the same
analysis, but with less ff ^^^ more w, was discovered for "common sense."
In order to account for what has been called "quick" intelligence the p
had to be made small ; and just the same analysis was obtained for "origin-
ality" (22, Chap. XX).
Still, all such services rendered to orexis already are no more than a
pledge, it is hoped, of much more to be done in the future. An instance
of where the theory of two factors might lead to great advance is in enum-
erating the human "springs of action," or "instincts" as they are now more
often called. At present, every psychologist seems to think he ought to make
out a new list for himself; and this independent procedure, unfruitful
C. SPEARMAN 361
though it may be for science, is at any rate easily done. For such lists are
really nothing more than classifications; and these can be made from an
unlimited diversity of standpoints. But trouble comes over the scene w^hen
most of the authors tacitly assume that their lists signify much more than
mere classes, and handle them as if they represented functional unities.
In fact, we have here once more the old fallacy of "faculties" and "types" —
these and the instincts are all tarred with the same brush. And the rem-
edy, too, would in all cases seem to be the same. What the instincts need
is to be no longer merely classified, but to be expressed in terms of uni-
tary functions.
Even this case of instincts is not the end of the difficulties which may
perhaps be solved along kindred lines. Think of all the mental traits which
are habitually used to describe human character. A partial list of them has
been given by Partridge (18), and runs into thousands! It begins with:
"Abandoned, abject, abnormal, abrupt, absorbed . . ."
and ends with:
". . . Wide-awake, wishy-washy, worthless, wretched, witless,
woebegone, worrying, worthy and zealous."
A survey of such a list indicates the gross inadequacy of the current de-
vice whereby some half a dozen traits are picked out more or less arbi-
trarily to constitute the whole "profile" of an individual. Profiles of the
sort can be constructed in literally millions; and without any definite
grounds for preferring one to another. What we really need is a unique
list of a few ultimate functional unities, so as to set forth the profile of
these. Insight into this situation appears to be rapidly gaining ground.
During the last few months the present writer has himself received nu-
merous letters, inquiring as to how tables of orectic correlations — normal or
pathological — can be brought to manageable simplicity by means of ex-
pression in terms of functional unities.
VIII. Looking Backwards and Forwards
Summarizing the theory of factors, we may note first the common error
that the usage of these necessarily presupposes an advanced knowledge of
mathematics. To probe the foundations of this theory, doubtless, or to
develop it along novel lines, may need mathematical aptitude and training
of high order. But just the same may be said of the ordinary measure-
ment of limens; and yet, whoever could not actually measure them would
nowadays hardly be recognized as a psychologist at all. Of the two, calcu-
lation of a limen and calculation of tetrad differences, the latter is not the
harder task, but the easier. Such a state of affairs seems to be shared
by all sciences, even physics itself. To dig the mathematical foundations of
this is left to a comparatively small body of specialists, but the simpler for-
mulae derived from these specialized researches are used in actual practice
by every physicist.
No less erroneous have we found the common belief which takes the
general theory of two factors to be founded upon some dubious assumptions
362 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
or hypotheses. Fundamentally, it is built on nothing assumptive or hypo-!
thetical, but on undisputed mathematical theorems and actual observations, •
The admixture of assumption and hypothesis does not appear on the scene
until an attempt is made to render the observations more intelligible — to
"explain" them. Such an attempt need never be made at all ; many writers
perfer to muddle along without. Furthermore, even when the explanations ;
offered differ widely from one another, it does not at all follow that they
are mutually inconsistent. Thus it is quite conceivable that g should be
explained either by the hypothesis of energy, or by that of sampling, or by
both hypotheses simultaneously. The theory of factors, in fact, is es-
sentially such as to waive the matters that are most controversial ; it affords
means of pushing on with positive observations, each verifiable on its own
account. Its real trend is not to kindle, but to quench, the warring between i
the different schools.
This leads us to yet a third popular fallacy about the theory of factors,
and perhaps the gravest of them all. This is to the effect that the factors,
until they do receive some assumptive or hypothetical explanation, possess
little or no positive content; they are thought to remain something inde-
scribable, or even meaningless. This view overlooks that the method of;
factors involves three stages. The initial one is, by means of actual obser-i
vations and some simple formulae, to discover that the factors exist and
where they do so. Such location (unlike the customary psychological defi-
nitions) serves to determine the factors unequivocably. But it does leave
their psychological significance remarkably scant. Before the final stage of
explanatory hypothesis, however, there intervenes the indefinitely long
middle stage ; here the factors, despite their poverty of significance, can still
be utilized to obtain a limitless harvest of further observations. And then
these observations proceed to repay their debt ; although originated by the
help of factors that are almost meaningless, they proceed, in their turn to
invest these factors with richer and richer meaning.
Already the results obtained in this way appear to have been extraordi-
narily abundant. Here we have had space to chronicle summarily only the
most fundamental of them, each of which deserves — and no doubt will
some day receive — many volumes on its own account. As a pre-eminent
instance may be quoted the evidence which has linked up the factor g with
the processes of noegenesis; processes which, like the factors, are free from
assumption or hypothesis and have been actually observed. In particular
g has shown itself to be co-extensive with the two noegenetic processes
called the educing of relations and that of correlates. This result has been
gained from an immense amount of qualitative and quantitative observa-
tions made by very numerous investigators. As a general fundamental fact —
making due reservation for all the inevitable additions and corrections to
befall eventually — this identifying of g with eduction promises to serve as
a polar star to guide our further advances throughout the region of indi-
vidual psychology.
But this hopeful glance at the future suggests yet another one. If indi-
vidual psychology can get such benefit from the factors, what about the
C. SPEARMAN 363
Other region of psychology called "general"? Is this also to become a bene-
ficiary?
Our answer may confidently be, Yes! General psychology to a large
extent consists in classification by resemblance ; but this usually admits of
being done in a diversity of ways. And such option of procedure leads to
grave confusion, which is largely responsible for psychological controversy.
Great relief is felt and progress made whenever some or other of the classi-
fications gains any distinct advantage over the rest. This advantage is
sometimes afforded by reference to a bodily organ. For example, the divi-
sion of visual sensations into chromatic and achromatic has become much
more stable in psychology since the former were shown to characterize a
particular kind of nerve-ending in the retina. For contrast, look at the
classifications of the chromatic sensations among themselves; this still re-
mains in endless dispute, because here the proposed different classes do not
possess any known separate organs.
Now, just as potent as the advantage conferred upon any proposed class
by a separate bodily organ may be that which comes from unity of func-
tion. And any class which, owing to this unity of function, secures for
itself dominance in the sphere of individual psychology, is almost certain to
extend its influence sooner or later over to the other or general sphere.
For example, since individual psychology has managed to evolve out of the
chameleonic "intelligence" the stable and functionally unified g, and has
sharply delimited this by the noegenetic processes, we may reasonably ex-
pect that both the g and the noegenesis will eventually establish themselves
in general psychology also; whilst the other concepts of "intelligence," not
being so advantaged, will gradually fade away into the background.
Visions of the future may even allow themselves a still more- distant
range. This year physicists have been impressively proclaiming what mar-
vellous offspring are born to their science from wedding the experimental
method to mathematical analysis. But such a marriage is just what is
being commenced by the functional analysis considered here. Some day,
maybe, psychologists too will bring forth their quantums and their rela-
tivities.
But how in all this, it may be asked, is any of the promised help afforded
towards softening the warfare between schools? Something in this direc-
tion, it may be replied, has already been exemplified by the unending and
unprogressive controversy about "intelligence." So long as any such con-
cept continues to represent only a class, it must almost necessarily remain
equivocal and vacillating; for the simple reason that classification can be
done in an unlimited variety of fashions. But so soon as the merely classi-
fying concepts in psychology are replaced by definitely located functional
unities as recommended here, then this prime source of discord between
schools will automatically come to an end.
But there is yet another road by which a remedy may be sought against
this deadly canker of psychology, the splitting up into discordant schools.
It consists in our general policy, as embodied in the preceding pages, which
may be formulated as that of advancing along the line of best evidence;
364 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
Otherwise expressed, as that of proceeding from the better to the less well
known — from what is more likely to gain general assent to what is less
likely. By virtue of this principle it is that our own march has been
divided into three stages. First has come — free from complication with all
else — the basis of actual observations and mathematical demonstrations.
In the second stage, we are still busy with observations, but now mingled
with more or less precarious inferences. Last to arrive are the mere as-
sumptions and hypotheses. Put these first, and the whole band of investi-
gators is at once violently split up into warring forces. Put them last, and
the rage of controversy soon dies down into the amenities of postprandial
speculation.
But this policy does not stop at its applications to our own procedure;
it bears no less on that of others. Take for instance the school of behavior-
ism. This seem to have two main roots, metaphysical and methodological.
The first of these consists in an attempt to found psychology on the doctrine
of materialism. How could one for a moment suppose that any meta-
physical doctrine whatever — much less this peculiarly contentious one —
could fail to arouse forthwith a bitterly hostile opposing school! Now,
with our policy of admitting evidence in due order, such monstrous at-
tempts to bluff psychology — by tacitly assuming just that which cannot
possibly be proved — ^will be relegated to the limbo of things lost. Turning
to the second or methodological root of behaviorism — this consists in a be-
lief that the observation of behavior supplies psychology with its most cer-
tain and reliable data. So far, excellent. We can, no doubt, cognize
much more certainly whether a man's risorial muscles are being contracted
than whether his thoughts are turned to villainy. But why, when we have
observed the former fact securely, should the behaviorist forbid our going
on further and attempting to establish the second fact also? Here again
is a pernicious bone of contention that might have been escaped by our
policy of taking the evidence, in due order indeed, but nevertheless com-
pletely.
As another instance, take the Berlin school of Gestalt, or better — as
Aveling has proposed — "formalism." Here the start is made by casting
out the associationist foundation of psychology in elementary "sensa-
tions," replacing these by the perception of whole things, as we find it to
occur in ordinary life. Again excellent, up to a point. Undeniably, the
whole percepts are the data best known to us. But after thus beginning
here rightly enough, why does this school order us to stop here, forbidding
us to go further by way of analysis and inference? What but horrid war
could possibly be excited by such an arbitrary attempt at mutilation and
sterilization of procedure? And how simply would this trouble be dis-
solved away, if these formalists, instead of wilfully stopping short at the
phenomena of whole percepts, were then to give fair hearing to the further
evidence also!
What has just been remarked about two of the present belligerent schools
of psychology could easily be extended mutatis mutandis to all the others.
In every case, it seems to me, much of the modern disastrous clash of psy-
C. SPEARMAN 365
chologies might similarly be transformed into mutually tolerant coopera-
tion.
Such, then, is the policy of the school of functional analysis and of noe-
genesis. Its main desire is to abolish schools, in the sense of parties who
are not cooperative. It pleads in general that different species of evidence
should be given hearing in the order of their security. It urges in parti-
cular that all observations should be examined on their own merits, and
not mixed up with — therefore perturbed by — inferences and hypotheses
that are less certain and hence more controversial. It comes, then, not as
a further combatant in the psychological arena, but as an apostle of peace.
REFERENCES
1. Black, T. P. Proc. Roy. Soc. Edinburgh, 1929, 49, 72-77.
2. Daniell, p. J. Boundary conditions for correlation coefficients. Brit. J.
Psychol., 1929, 20, 190-194.
3. Davey, C. a comparison of group verbal and pictorial tests of intelligence.
Brit. J. Psychol., 1926, 17, 27-48.
4. DoDD, S. C. On criteria for factorising correlated variables. Biometrika,
1927, 19, 45-52.
5. Flugel, J. C. Practice, fatigue and oscillation. Brit. J. Psychol., Monog.
Suppl., 1928, 4, No. 13. Pp. 92.
6. Freeman, F. N. Mental tests. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1926. Pp. ix+503.
7. Garnett, J. C. M. On certain independent factors in mental measurements.
Proc. Roy. Soc. London {A), 1919, 96, 91-111.
8. . General ability, cleverness and purpose. Brit. J. Psychol.
1919, 9, 345-366.
9. Hamid, S. a. Some factors of effectiveness in mental ("intelligence") tests.
Brit. J. Psychol., 1925, 16, 100-115.
10. HoLZiNGER, K. J. On tetrad differences with overlapping variables. J. Educ.
Psychol., 1929, 20, 91-97.
11. Kelley, T. L. Statistical method. New York: Macmillan, 1924. Pp. xli-f 390.
12. . Crossroads in the mind of man: a study of differentiable
mental abilities. Stanford University: Stanford Univ. Press, 1928. Pp. 245.
13. Krueger, F., & Spearman, C. Die Korrelation zwischen verschiedenen geist-
igen Leistungsfahigkeiten. Zsch. f. Psychol., 1906, 44, 50-114.
14. Lashley, K. S. Basic neural mechanisms in behavior. Psychol. Rev., 1930,
37, 1-24.
15. Lehmann, a. Die korperlichen Aeusserungen psychischer Zustande. II. Die
physischen Aequivalente der Bewusstseinserscheinungen. Leipzig: O. R.
Reisland, 1901. Pp. viii-f-327.
16. Mackie, J. The probable value of the tetrad difference on the sampling
theory. Brit. J. Psychol., 1928, 19, 65-76.
17. McCrae, C. Thesis in Library of University of London.
18. Partridge, G. E. On outline of individual study. New York: Sturgis &
Walton, 1910. Pp. v+240.
19. Perera, H. S. Thesis in Library of University of London.
20. Spearman, C. The proof and measurement of association between two
things. Amer. J. Psychol., 1904, 15, 72-101.
21. . The nature of "intelligence" and the principles of cognition.
(2nd ed.) London, New York: Macmillan, 1927. Pp. viii+358.
22. . The abilities of man: their nature and measurement. London,
New York: Macmillan, 1927. Pp. xxIII-f415.
366 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
23. Stephenson, — . Thesis in Library of University of London.
24. Strasheim, J. J. A new method of mental testing. Baltimore: Warwick &
York, 1926. Pp. 158.
25. Thompson, J. R. Boundry conditions for correlation coefficients between
three and four variables. Brit. J. Psychol, 1928, 19, 77-94.
26. Thomson, G. H. On the formation of structure diagrams between four
correlated variables. J. Edut. Psychol., 1927, 18, 145-158.
27. Thorndike, E. L., et al. The measurement of intelligence. New York;
Teach. Coll. Bur. Publ., 1926. Pp. xxvi-f 616.
28. Thurstone, L. L. A method of scaling psychological and educational tests.
J. Educ. Psychol, 1925, 16, 433-451.
29. Travis, L. E., & Hunter, T. A. The relation between "intelligence" and
reflex conduction rate. J. Exper. Psychol, 1928, 11, 342-354.
30. Walters, — . To be published shortly.
31. Webb, E. Character and intelligence. Brit. J. Psychol, Monog. Suppl, 1915,
1, No. 3. Pp. ix+99.
32. Wild, E. H. Influences of conation on cognition. Brit. J. Psychol, 1917, 18,
147-167.
33. . Influences of conation on cognition. Part II. Brit. J. Psychol,
1928, 18, 332-355.
34. WiRTH, W. Paper read at International Congress of Psychology, 1929.
35. Wishart, J. Sampling errors in the theory of two factors. Brit. J. Psychol,
1928, 19, 180-187.
PART XI
ANALYTICAL PSYCHOLOGIES
P
CHAPTER 19
L'ANALYSE PSYCHOLOGIQUE*
Pierre Janet
College of France
The science of physiology studies the general laws of digestion or circula-
tion in all the individuals of the same species, in an effort to find the
functions of the average individual of the group. Practical medicine re-
quires something more than this; knowledge of the various modifications
of this function in certain definite individuals is necessary in order to
determine in what way it differs from the normal and in order to attempt
to re-establish the functioning necessary for the prolongation of life.
The same is true in the field of psychology; psychology determines with
more or less precision the great psychological functions as they are and
as they ought to be in the average man. However, when attempting to
become practical and render service to jurisprudence, pedagogy, and
mental therapy, psychology is obliged to become more concerned with
concrete cases and to determine to what degree a particular individual is
removed from the normal. A magistrate, in order to prevent a second
offense, must know the modifications of conduct which have played an
important role in the accomplishment of this act and which have prepared
for its repetition. A teacher, directing the education of a particular child,
cannot limit himself to the application of a general education suitable to
the average child but not necessarily suitable to this individual. He must
know exactly to what extent this child differs from the others, and in
what way it is necessary to modify the general methods of teaching for
him. The doctor who is especially interested in neuropathy and insanity
considers abnormal individuals exceptional by definition and cannot treat
them with precision if he does not know what constitutes their irregularity,
what distinguishes them from others. Psychology of the individual is the
necessary consequence of practical psychology which departs from general-
ities to render service to individuals.
Uanalyse psychologique is the indispensable method of psychology of
the individual, which has for its object the search for those characteristic
behavior traits which distinguish an individual from others. If this is
true, it is impossible to indicate in a general way the rules and methods
of an analyse psychologique. This analysis will vary according to one's
proposed aim; it cannot be the same when it is a question of reforming
a criminal, educating a child, or curing a neurotic. Above all, this
analysis will continue to vary with the progress of science itself as it
discovers new functions and new methods for determining the state of
each particular function. Today the measurement of basal metabolism
enters into the physiological analysis of a patient, whereas several years
*Submitted in French and translated for the Clark University Press by Dorothy
Olson.
[369]
370 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
ago it was never considered. Uanalyse psychologique changes every day,
and I can survey only very rapidly a few examples to show the high points
of a useful analysis today.
The first individual analyses seem to have been made by means of
scholastic examinations in which young persons were subjected to a series
of questions on the elements of the various sciences or the history of their
country in order to determine the extent of their intellectual acquisitions.
These examinations, which are still universally applied especially in the
field of vocational guidance, are not without value and are of great
assistance in discovering particular aptitudes. However, these examina-
tions may well be reproached for their narrowness since they stress only
the acquisitions of the memory. It is well known that a good verbal
memory capable of reproducing whole courses is no proof of the value
of an individual and that failures of this verbal memory do not necessarily
indicate great psychological gaps.
A long time ago — for life passes rapidly — I thought that another memory,
closely associated with the preceding one but not identical with it, was of
more importance from the psychiatric point of view. Memory of the
events of one's own life play a part in the development of personality,
and more or less distinct and easily evoked memories of certain emotional
situations in one's life are of great importance in certain psychological
disorders. In my works published between the years 1886 and 1892, I
have shown by numerous illustrations that memories of certain dramatic
circumstances to which the subject had not succeeded in adapting himself
presented themselves to the mind in the form of unsolved problems, re-
produced in a pathological form the original emotion, and by means of
various mechanisms gave rise to neurotic symptoms; this I called trau-
matic memory of an unassimilated event. The search for these memories,
though difHcult, might in some cases give rise to a very useful psychological
analysis. I very often resort to this method, which obtains some interest-
ing cures through the modification of this traumatic memory.
However, is it necessary to conclude that this search for traumatic
memory constitutes all Vanalyse psychologique even in the case of a
neurotic? Alas! a lengthy experience with patients has disillusioned me
on this point. It is often a great mistake to attribute to this or that
memory of the patient, even though it be an emotional one, such con-
siderable influence on present disorders. Present exhaustion does not
always bear any relation to the more or less conscious persistence of
certain memories of this sort. In many cases, the emotional event and
its memory have at the start played an important part for a certain
period. The disorder to which they have led, the bad thought habits,
and the subsequent exhaustion have become independent of the memory
itself, and the modifications of the memory do not act upon them. In-
fectious diseases often terminate in disorders which persist indefinitely
even after the disappearance of the microbe, and no tardy and useless
disinfection will efifect a cure of these remaining disorders. In other
cases, constantly repeated slight emotions, which have been quickly for-
gotten, have made important modifications of the psychological functions.
PIERRE JANET 371
Maladjusted reactions to social situations, so ably pointed out by Adolf
Meyer, in speaking of the origin of dementia praecox, faulty education, and
many other circumstances, may be more important than this or that memory.
Finally, one must not forget hereditary constitutions, and those little
understood diseases such as colic-bacillary infections so common among
neurotics. The psychiatrist must be a well-informed psychologist, but he
must also be a doctor. To insist upon pursuing indefinitely an analysis
of memories is to misunderstand many other elements which play an
important part in mental disorders.
The mind consists of a group of functions which has evolved through
the centuries and through the life of the individual as well, and moral
equilibrium demands the presence of all these functions. They do not
all function at once, but they should be ready to function when circum-
stances demand. It is always necessary to discover whether some im-
portant function or group of functions has been destroyed and whether
their failure to function is not the cause of the present disorder. If an
individual complains of not being able to read, it is not necessary to search
for traumatic memories relative to improper reading, when it would
suffice to say that he has a disorder of the eyes.
In fact, phylogenetically older psychological functions have definite
organs; those which are less ancient, however, have definite centers in
the nervous system. In both these cases, alterations of functions are in
accord with discernible modifications of function. Uanalyse psychol-
ogique must understand these studies made upon organs, and upon modifi-
cations of reflexes manifesting organic alterations. To limit analysis to
non-organic psychological disorders is to raise in vain all kinds of meta-
physical problems and to misunderstand the importance of organic diffi-
culties even in a psychosis. Uanalyse psychologique applies equally well
to hemiplegia, aphasia, and delirium. Discovery of a change in function
naturally becomes more difficult when it is a question of recent operations
whose difficulties do not manifest themselves by means of readily per-
ceptible organic modifications. Above all, it is necessary to guide one's
self by the study of the functioning of psychological habits. The method
of examination by means of tests is still in its infancy; its great difficulty
lies in the fact that it cannot yet indicate to which function of the mind
the correct execution of a particular test corresponds. However, it is
making progress, and in the future will be of great importance in the
distinction between functions which remain intact and those which have
undergone modification.
An important characteristic of psychological functions is that they are not
all of the same value. They present varying degrees of complexity and
efficiency and seem to have been acquired gradually in a certain order.
They may be arranged in a hierarchy in which the higher functions rule
and interfere with the lower ones, thus giving to acts a greater efficiency
in both time and space. In the brutal destruction of organs, lesions may
by chance destroy functions irregularly. For example, a man may lose
the elementary function of vision and still retain the superior function of
I
372 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
reflection. This is one of the important characteristics of these so-called
organic lesions.
In most cases, it is a case of a general disorder striking all functions,
suppressing the superior ones first and descending downward on the
psychological hierarchy. The importance of disorders of the higher
functions, especially in the field of belief, is shown in various deliria in
which lower functions such as assertive belief continue to exist. Deter-
mination of the degree to which the disorder has attained is important
in the appreciation of the degree of psychological tension. Uanalyse
psychologique which is not limited to the notation of ideas and memories
acquired by the individual, but which seeks to penetrate more profoundly
into the constitution of the mind, should strive to determine the degree of
lowering of psychological tension.
Unfortunately, this study is not yet sufficient. It is not alone sufficient
to have numerous perfected mechanisms but it is also necessary that
these mechanisms function properly under all circumstances. When an
automobile stops, it does not necessarily mean that some part is broken;
it may simply lack oil. One can sum up briefly by means of the expression
psychological force those modifications of conduct which are still difficult
to measure such as power of movement, number of actions, their undis-
turbed duration, their rapidity, etc., always keeping in mind their hier-
archical values. In fact, it seems that the more elevated an act is in the
hierarchy, the more energy it requires.
Diminution of force and modification of the important relationship
between tension and psychological force are becoming elements of vast
importance to psychological analysis. This diminution of energy is most
apparent in certain feelings and deliria. The feeling of pressure, in which
effort plays a predominant role, indicates a diminution of the functioning
of those tendencies for which psychological activity of the whole per-
sonality seeks to substitute. Feelings attached to morose inactivity and
to melancholy indicate with greater precision a certain general weakness.
However, one must suspect these measures of energy as a result of
certain feelings and delirium; the latter are regular reactions which may
be modified by all sorts of influences and which may easily be mistaken.
One of the most important studies of Vanalyse psychologique will be the
appreciation of the degree of psychic energy of an individual and the
extent of his weakness; we know nothing of the nature of this psychic
energy, but we must study its manifestations and succeed in measuring
it as the physicist measures an electric current without understanding
the nature of it.^
Briefly, Vanalyse psychologique does not insist upon a pre-established
system of study, but consists in the application to definite individuals of
all psychological and physiological knowledge; incomplete and difficult, it
will doubtless make progress, thanks to the development of psychology
proper.
^See my earlier works (1, 2).
PIERRE JANET 373
REFERENCES
1. Janet, P. Obsessions et psychastenie. (2 vols.) Paris: Alcan, 1903, 1908.
Pp. 600.
2. . De I'angoisse a I'extase. (2 vols.) Paris: Alcan, 1926, 1928.
Pp. 527; 697.
3. . La faiblesse et la force psychologique. Paris: Chahine, 1930.
CHAPTER 20
PSYCHOANALYSIS
ITS STATUS AND PROMISE
J. C. Flugel
University of London
All readers of this volume who have already a pretty extensive knowl-
edge of contemporary mental science will probably agree that psycho-
analysis and behaviorism are the two most original and startling of all
the psychologies that hold the field today. Both involve striking changes
in method and outlook and represent definite departures from the main
trend of psychological development; and (in spite of the very considerable
degree of acceptance which behaviorism has met with in America — as
distinct from other parts of the world) it may still be said that both are
looked at with suspicion by the great body of the world's psychologists.
But, if they are alike in these respects, psychoanalysis and behaviorism
differ in nearly all other directions. Indeed, in certain ways they represent
the two extreme tendencies in present psychology. Introspective observa-
tion of consciousness and explanation in terms of conscious thoughts and
motives constitute the classical method of psychology. This method has.,
however, always been supplemented by the observation of (objective)
behavior — if only in order that there may be something for introspection
to explain. Behaviorism, inspired by the progress of modern physical, and
above all of physiological, science bids us give up both the practice of
introspection and the attempt to explain conduct in terms of consciousness.
Psychoanalysis, while in no way m.inimizing the value of objective observa-
tion and indeed making considerable use of it, has endeavored to extend
the method of explanation in terms of consciousness by employing the
already familiar concept of the unconscious much more consistently and
frequently than has been done by any previous school. Instead of abandon-
ing such explanation as soon as introspection fails to reveal the presence of
adequate motives, it makes a bold attempt to see how far light can be
thrown upon the obscurer phemonena of thought, feeling, and behavior
by the assumption that these, too, are determined by psychological motives,
but motives of an unconscious and therefore unintrospectable kind. In so
doing, it does not in any way assert the impossibility of physiological ex-
planations, such as are usually sought by other schools of psychology in
these circumstances; indeed it hopes that adequate physiological correla-
tions will one day be forthcoming. But it refuses to abandon the search
for psychological causes just because introspection does not reveal them,
and, by adopting and extending the concept of the unconscious, it seri-
ously postulates for the first time in the history of psychology a thorough
psychological determinism, according to which every psychological event
[374]
J. C. FLUGEL 375
is regarded as having a psychological cause. It is probably true that such
an assumption is logically implied in every theory of psychophysical par-
allelism; but the school of psychoanalysis is the first to have the courage
to convert this philosophical assumption into a true working hypothesis,
thereby putting psychology in the same category as the physical sciences,
so far as concerns the fundamental methodological postulate of an un-
broken chain of causality.
These tw^o concepts — of the unconscious and of psychical determinism —
are fundamental in psychoanalysis. If we refuse to accept these concepts,
psychoanalysis can have little meaning for us. There are, of course, psy-
chologists who will not allow that such concepts are justifiable; they ex-
plicitly deny the former concept and implicitly deny the latter (by invari-
ably turning to physiology where introspection fails). But, in consider-
ing the position of psychoanalysis as a school of psychology, it is well to
point out that of its two most fundamental doctrines, one, that of the
unconscious, has already been held by many psychologists and philosophers
of different schools, while the other, that of psychical determinism, would
seem to be logically implied in the most popular modern solution of the
age-old problem of the relation between mind and body.
But if there is nothing very unorthodox about its basic postulates, it
must be admitted that in many respects — its history, its methods, its ways
of thought, its terminology, its personnel — psychoanalysis lies uniquely
apart from the main body of psychological science. This is well illustrated
by the fact that there was no section on psychoanalysis in Psychologies of
1925; doubtless, because of its peculiar position at the moment, it did not
appear to be a "psychology" within the meaning of the term that was
adopted. The inclusion of such a section in the present volume shows,
however, that the barrier between psychoanalysis and other psychological
systems is being slowly broken down — a circumstance that will surely be
welcomed by all who consider that psychoanalysis has some real contribu-
tion to- make to the study of the mind. And yet this circumstance must
not blind us to the existence of the important diiferences that separate
psychoanalysis from other schools of psychology. The editorial welcome
that has now been accorded to psychoanalysis seems, rather, to afford a
suitable occasion for an attempt to review the status of psychoanalysis as
a branch of psychology, with reference both to its present position as a
science and its promise for the future.
Historically, psychoanalysis owes much of its relative isolation to the
facts {a) that it was originated not by a pure psychologist but by a
physician; {b) that, to an extent almost if not quite unique in the history
of science, its main features were developed by its founder before it at-
tracted any appreciable notice from the scientific world at all. These
historical reasons were strongly reinforced subsequently — as soon as Freud's
views came to be at all widely known — by a psychological reason : the fact
that the discoveries of psychoanalysis aroused incredulity and displeasure.
They seemed at once so surprising and so repellent that there appeared to
the ordinary psychologist to be but little inducement to forsake his own
376 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
'1
safer, more orthodox, and more comfortable line of work for a method
that had only produced results that were deemed unlikely to be true, and,
even if true, would be decidedly unwelcome. The obvious course was to
remain aloof and either neglect the claims of psychoanalysis, leaving it to
psychoanalysts themselves to prove their points if they could do so, or else
to meet them critically with an endeavor to show that the methods of
psychoanalysis were faulty and its conclusions consequently unsound. Most
psychologists adopted the former course; a few decided on the latter, and
with their arguments we shall have to deal. Still some few others, how-
ever, having conquered their first incredulity, saw the apparent reason-
ableness and possible great significance of psychoanalytic findings, and
proceeded to fit them into their own psychological systems wherever they
were able. Of this latter group, some became again more critical upon a
closer acquaintance, while others have continued to hold in the main a
favorable opinion of psychoanalysis, though, partly because the workers
in this class have been so few and partly because the task itself is difficult,
they have so far achieved only a small degree of amalgamation between
psychoanalytic results and those achieved by other methods. Meanwhile,
the psychoanalysts on their side have made very few attempts at a rap-
prochement, and from Freud himself downwards have built up such
theories as they needed with but little reference to those of "academic"
psychology. Indeed they have, paradoxically enough at first sight, estab-
lished a far firmer contact with the other sciences of human life, notably
with anthropology, than with mental science proper, chiefly because they
found in many of these other sciences, concerned as they are with funda-
mental and archaic human institutions, more data germane to those which
they themselves encountered in their own study of the deeper layers of
the mind.
The term "psychoanalysis" itself threatened at one time, largely through
the indiscretions of journalists and publishers, to become so wide as to
lose all significance. But recently there has been a healthy tendency to
restrict its application to the work of Freud and his school, and such a
restricted meaning seems to be now adopted in all psychological and medi-
cal circles. As used in this way, the term still denotes four things, which
can be at least theoretically distinguished. The first of these is a method —
the peculiar feature of which is that it serves at one and the same time as
a means of psychological investigation and as a therapeutic instrument.
The second meaning of the term refers to the facts discovered by this
method. In the third meaning the term is extended to cover the con-
clusions that are drawn from these facts and the theories that are founded
on them. In the fourth place the term is used to designate the study of
further facts (obtained otherwise than by the psychoanah^tic method and
often taken from very varied fields) in the light of the facts and theories
already mentioned.
The attitude of the analyst towards these wider data is, in general,
similar to that which he adopts towards the data presented by an indi-
vidual patient. In both cases he endeavors to direct an impartial, evenly
J. C. FLUGEL 377
distributed attention to the material as it presents itself, quietly noting
resemblances and differences, until certain connections force themselves
upon him, leading to provisional conclusions, vt^hich are in turn accepted,
rejected, or modified in the light of further data. Hence, although the
fields are, in many ways, very different, the procedure itself is fundamen-
tally the same as that in the case of what, for the sake of convenience,
we have here distinguished as the psychoanalytic method proper.
Such a distinction of the various (legitimate) meanings of the term
"psychoanalysis" is useful because the chief difficulties that have been raised
about the scientific status of psychoanalysis are to a great extent concerned
with the relations between these different meanings. More particularly
is this the case with regard to the distinction between the second and third
meanings. The chief controversy here concerns what can be regarded as
observed fact and what is mere hypothesis. But this question in its turn
leads back to the distinction between psychoanalysis as a method and
psychoanalysis as a body of discovered facts, for it has been thought that
the method itself is liable to distort the facts it is desired to study — that
the so-called facts are indeed artifacts. As regards the fourth meaning,
the chief problem at issue is whether the interpretations made by the
psychoanalytic writers can be regarded as independent confirmations of
results obtained more directly by the psychoanalytic method, or whether
there is here a vicious circle in which the distorted facts and interpreta-
tions obtained by this method are illegitimately read iijto the anthropolog-
ical, aesthetic, or biographical data under consideration, which data are
then erroneously regarded as affording corroboration of the original con-
clusions.
The problems connected with the first three meanings are closely inter-
connected and depend in the last resort upon questions connected with
the psychoanalytic method. We must therefore start our critical consid-
erations by dealing with the method. As is well known, this method was
originally developed as a substitute for the evocation of memories under
hypnosis, and in its essential features has been unchanged for many years,
though auxiliary measures which aim at bringing about more favorable
circumstances for the working of these essential features have been the
subject of considerable experimentation and discussion. The most funda-
mental of the features in question is the process of free association. The
subject of the analysis is asked to abandon the usual conscious control of
thought, to cease thinking for any particular purpose or about any par-
ticular theme. Having adopted this attitude, he is then to say (but
naturally not to do!) everything that comes into his head — even though
much of what occurs to him may appear senseless, disjointed, painful,
intimate, or impolite. The method involves the fullest confidence in
psychical determinism, the assumption being that, just in so far as con-
scious direction is abandoned, the flow of thoughts will be determined by
unconscious factors, the nature of which will become more clearly appar-
ent than when conscious direction is maintained.
The jnstruction given to the subject; ihough it sounds so simple, is far
378 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
from easy of fulfilment. Indeed, when the attempt is made, it soon be-
comes apparent that the free flow of thought is constantly impeded and
that the subject's mind becomes the seat of conflicts, which prevent an
easy, uninterrupted sequence of ideas. The causes of interruption them-
selves seem to belong to various levels. At the one extreme the subject
may be clearly conscious of certain ideas, but (from shame, embarrassment,
or other motives) may hesitate to say them out aloud in the presence of
the analyst. At the other extreme the subject may find that for appreci-
able periods his mind becomes little better than a blank, containing at most
some faint and vague impressions of his actual environment — and this in
spite of his utmost conscious efforts to overcome the stoppage. In this
latter case it seems clear that some inner but unknown force is impeding
the associations, that there is an unconscious resistance to the appearance
of certain ideas in consciousness, just as in the other case there is a con-
scious disinclination to communicate such ideas as are already there.
It is evident that this method of free association has some features
which differentiate it from other methods of psychological observation
and experimentation. In particular, the determination to say every-
thing and to put no check on either thought or expression, if it is
honestly persisted in, soon leads the subject into intimate topics which
neither his own feelings nor our ordinary social and ethical conventions
will allow him to discuss except under conditions which insure con-
fidence and privacy. Indeed in many cases he would refuse to discuss
them at all, had he not a strong motive for doing so, this motive be-
ing supplied, in the case of the neurotic patient, by the suffering that
his neurosis entails. In other cases it has to be supplied by professional
or scientific considerations or by the deeper lying "compulsion to con-
fession" which, according to some psychoanalytic writers, is a fundamen-
tal characteristic of the human mind. Here at once we encounter a
great difKculty of the method from the strictly scientific point of view
— the fact that this need for confidence and privacy makes it difficult or
impossible for others to obtain full information as to what takes place
during the process of analysis. For a third person to be actually present
would fatally disturb the privacy. For the words of the analysand to
be taken down in full (either by a concealed shorthand writer or by
a dictaphone) would be to betray the confidence which he has placed
in the analyst. Even subsequently published abbreviated accounts have
often to be curtailed, or certain details of the reports have to be modified,
though in psychoanalysis details are often of supreme importance for
conveying understanding and conviction.
But these disadvantages, formidable as they may seem, are not really
so significant in practice as might at first appear, for the reason that,
even if the conditions of privacy and confidence did not exist, there
would still remain almost impossible obstacles in the way of presenting
a permanent and complete record of any individual analysis. There
are two such obstacles. In the first place, the analyst's conclusions and
convictions are based, not only on the mere words utttered by his patient,
J. C. FLUGEL 379
but also on the emotional expression that goes with their utterance —
their varying intonation, loudness, and tempo, the pauses which are
made between them, and the gestures, and other bodily movements that
accompany them — all of which cannot be reproduced on any written
report. We are here face to face, not so much with a peculiar dif-
ficulty of the psychoanalytic method, as with a general deficiency of
written (as distinct from spoken) language. While written language is
tolerably adequate for the conveyance of the cognitive contents of our
minds, it is much less suitable than spoken language for indicating the
presence and nature of affective states. Suppose that in conversation
we make a given announcement to two people, A and B ; both may, for
reasons of convention or politeness, reply in the same formal terms; and
yet we may be quite clear from the way in which the words are spoken,
from involuntary bodily manifestations, etc., that our announcement is
pleasing to A and displeasing to B. But now suppose, further, that we
wish to convey in writing to a third person, C, the result of our an-
nouncement to A and B. If C is for any reason unwilling to believe
our account of the opposite feelings aroused in A and B, we shall find
it extraordinarily difficult to convince him, since the spoken words were
the same in both cases, and language is incapable of conveying adequately
the subtleties of emotional expression upon which we based our judg-
ment. The psychoanalyst is in a very similar position if he tries to
carry conviction to a sceptical outsider. It is impossible for him to pre-
pare any written report that shall provide another person with all the
data from which he himself draws his conclusions, since many of these
data are not communicable by means of written language. Indeed the
"talkie" seems the only medium through which these data could be made
generally available.^
And yet, even if this most recent invention of physical science could
help us to surmount this difficulty, another difficulty lies in wait, namely,
the impossibility of conveying adequately the great mass of material that
goes to an analysis in a way that could be apprehended by a fellow-
scientist with ordinary powers of patience and endurance. A com-
plete psychoanalysis is — as is now well known — a very lengthy business,
extending over months and years of daily work. A "talkie" of cor-
responding length — of anything from three hundred hours upwards —
would be unendurable, and even a condensed written report containing
anything in the nature of an attempt to convey the full material of three
hundred sittings would in the majority of cases remain unread; probably
for this reason no such full report seems as yet to have been made. We
^The day after I wrote this sentence, I learned from the newspaper that
the "talkie" had been employed experimentally in Philadelphia in the process
of obtaining a confession from a suspected murderer, so that the full facts con-
cerning his confession should be subsequently available for study and evaluation.
There is, of course, a certain parallelism between the need for subsequent evalua-
tion of legal evidence of this kind and the need for evaluating psychoanalytic
evidence.
380 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
have here a particularly crass example of a difficulty that is liable to
beset all scientific records that cannot be reduced to quantitative form.
The naturalist, for instance, describing the habits of some little-known
animal can make only a relatively brief summary of his actual (perhaps
very numerous) observations, illustrated by complete description oi a
few typical examples of concrete behavior on the part of the animal,
either by means of word pictures or with the help of photograph or
film. For the rest he can only invite his colleagues to give themselves
the trouble of making fresh observations of their own. And this is
what the psychoanalysts have done. They have given summarized re-
ports of their general conclusions drawn from long protracted analyses,
illustrated them by fuller accounts of the analysis of concrete items of
material (e.g., of dreams, of phantasies, and of instances of parapraxia^),
and have invited others to undertake similar analytic studies on their
own account. Their procedure has not in reality been different from
that of other scientists in a similar predicament.
The invitation to repeat the observations under like conditions seems
to be an adequate (perhaps indeed the only possible) reply to those
who doubt the correctness of the psychoanalyst's descriptions of the
facts observed, and of the conclusions he has drawn from these facts.
This — combined with a reference to the history of psychoanalysis, which
has shown a frequent remolding of theory to suit newly gathered data
— should be sufficient to deal with those earlier critics of psychoanalysis
who considered that analysts worked with preconceived theories and
chose their facts to fit these theories. It is still perhaps the only possible
reply to those more modern critics who insist that the psychoanalytic
method, as practiced, necessarily distorts the facts to be observed — though
the reply is in this case obviously less satisfactory. Such critics main-
tain that corroboration of the facts by fresh observers working by the
same method is scientifically valueless, since, by adopting the method
proposed by psychoanalysts, the new workers render themselves liable to
the same distortion of judgment that affected the original observers.
To explain this objection we have to take account of a complication
which, for the sake of simplicity, we have hitherto omitted from our con-
siderations of the psychoanalytic method. The process of free association,
which we have described as the most essential feature of this method,
does not in itself demand an activity on the part of the analyst be-
yond that of an attentive listener; nor does it, strictly speaking, demand
the presence of an analyst at all, for auto-analysis is theoretically at least
a possible procedure and is in practice often resorted to in minor matters.
Nevertheless, although by general admission psychoanalysis demands a
much greater passivity on the part of the physician than do other forms
of psychotherapy, it is, of course, true that the analyst is not entirely
passive. A psychoanalytic interview is not a monologue with an audience
^This term has been adopted by psychoanalysts as a general designation of the
minor errors and forgettings included by Freud under the name of "the psycho-
pathology of everyday life."
J. C. FLUGEL 381
of one, but a conversation between two people in which the patient plays
the leading part. Now, in so far as the analyst participates in the con-
versation, the method undergoes a complication; the essential process
of free association is interrupted and supplemented. A complicating fac-
tor of this kind obviously adds greatly to the difficulties of psychoanalysis
as a method of pure science — however much it may add to its therapeutic
efficiency. The analyst starts his work with certain expectations and
presuppositions gained from his own experience and his general knowledge
of the subject. It is clear that these presuppositions are liable to bias
his interpretation of the material with which his patient presents him and
that this interpretation may in turn exercise a suggestive influence upon
the patient. This latter influence, furthermore, seems likely to be all
the greater in view of the admitted occurrence of the transference — an
affective rapport of a peculiar kind between patient and analyst, which
always occurs in a successful analj^sis, and which is held by psychoan-
alysts themselves to have certain features in common with that which
occurs in hypnosis. What is more natural to suppose, therefore, than
that the patient accepts the interpretations of the analyst in virtue of a
heightened suggestibility induced by this rapport? The very process of
being analyzed is, then, it would seem, calculated to distort the analysand's
judgment in favor of psychoanalytic theories, and, as this process is re-
garded by analysts as one of the most important prerequisites for form-
ing a sound judgment as to the correctness of psychoanalytic views, it
would seem as though they had skilfully succeeded in entrenching them-
selves in a position in which they are effectually isolated from all crit-
icism.
The case against psychoanalysis from this point of view looks very
black indeed., To many opponents the case seems closed. But to show
that there are reasons which appear to render the conclusions of the
psychoanalyst unlikely does not in itself prove them to be untrue. What
methods of supporting his conclusions are open to the analyst? In the
main, two. In the first place, he can attempt to meet the charges directly,
by bringing evidence to the effect that suggestion does not in fact play
the role in psychoanalytic practice with which it has been credited. In
the second place, he can endeavor to support the correctness of psycho-
analytic conclusions indirectly, by showing that they are in harmony with
facts which can be observed quite independently of the psychoanalytic
method. In following this second course he necessarily makes use of the
last of the four above-mentioned meanings of the term psychoanalysis,
extending the term so as to include the study from the psychoanalytic
point of view of data gathered from numerous and varied fields, in them-
selves quite unconnected with psychoanalysis.
We shall deal first with the direct method of defense. The arguments
that have been, or may be, brought forward under this head are fairly
numerous :
1 ) It has been pointed out that psychoanalysts — and this applies es-
pecially to the pioneers of the method — should themselves be in a good
382 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
position to judge how far the influence of suggestion is at work, since
many of them (including of course, Freud himself) had enjoyed long
practice with suggestive therapeutics before they adopted psychoanalysis.
Indeed, having had experience with both methods, they should, other
things equal, be in a better position than their critics to understand the
points of resemblance and of difference between the two procedures.
2) An analysis carried out with the help of an already trained analyst
(hetero-analysis), though strongly recommended, is not always regarded
as essential; auto-analysis is a possible substitute for hetero-analysis, at
least in some cases, and this was, of course, the only method available to
certain pioneers, again including Freud himself. Some of the earliest and
most original members of the psychoanalytic school were therefore im-
mune to the influence of suggestion, in that form at least which is here
in question.
3) It is maintained that the development of psychoanalytic doctrine
shows that this doctrine, far from being constructed a priori, was a matter
of gradual growth, as new and often unsuspected facts were discovered.
Freud himself has frequently modified his views as his knowledge and
experience increased. Some of the modifications that were due to him
were certainly not of the kind that would have been made had his
object been to safeguard or clarify pre-existing theories. On the con-
trary, they show unmistakable signs of having been forced upon him by
experience. The best known of these modifications is that which con-
cerns the nature of sexual traumata in childhood ; whereas he at first be-
lieved that these traumata were always in the nature of real occurrences
and that the impressions which came to light during the analysis of cer-
tain cases were, as they appeared to be, genuine memories, he later found
that such impressions were in many cases mere phantasies, though this
did not prevent them from exerting a traumatic influence. A no less
striking instance was the introduction of the concept of narcissism which,
though it has proved amply justified by its usefulness in practice, has
undoubtedly rendered his theoretical conceptions more complex and dif-
ficult, since it spoiled the attractive simplicity of the theory of opposing
sexual trends and ego trends, and, by extending the sphere of the sex-
ual trends into the self, rendered the function of the ego trends much
more obscure than they had been at first. Such a complication of hitherto
existing views — a complication which, while it solves some problems,
necessitates a revision of theory in other directions — is of frequent oc-
currence in empirical science, but is seldom if ever found in a priori spec-
ulation, which always aims at relatively simple, wide, and clear-cut con-
cepts. We may bear in mind too, in this connection, that, right up
to the present time — more than three decades after the enunciation of
the first principles — psychoanalytic doctrine shows no signs of becoming
fixed or crystallized; on the contrary, it exhibits every indication of
healthy growth, important and far-reaching additions having been made
within the last few years.
, General considerations of this kind appear therefore to confirm the
J. C. FLUGEL 383
assertions of Freud and other psychoanalysts that the development of
psychoanalytic theory has followed and been built on fact, rather than
vice versa.
The ultimate verdict in this particular matter must lie v^ith the his-
torian of science. Meanv^^hile we may safely say that no serious attempt
has as yet been made by the critics of psychoanalysis to show in detail the
supposed influence of preconceived ideas upon the historical development
of psychoanalytic theory.
4) In conformity with the contention that psychoanalytic doctrine
as a whole has always been based upon discovered fact, it is also claimed
that in individual analysis the analyst is frequently unable to foretell the
precise significance of any particular symptom or other manifestation, but
is on the contrary often surprised to find its meaning quite other than
that which he might have anticipated on the basis of his existing knowl-
edge and presuppositions. Owing to the relative inaccessibility (for
reasons we have already dealt with) of the full facts concerning individual
analyses, the value of this claim is much more difficult to assess than the
corresponding claim concerning the development of" psychoanalytic doc-
trine as a whole. Those who hold that "suggestion" (in the last re-
sort both of analyst and analysand) is chiefly responsible for the alleged
"discoveries" of psychoanalysis will doubtless discount the statement of
analysts as to the frequent non-fulfilment of their expectations. It is
certainly worth noting, however, that this statement concerning individual
analyses is in full harmony with their (more easily verifiable) con-
tentions as to the development of general psychoanalytic theory.
5) The counter arguments hitherto dealt with aim at shovidng that
certain features of psychoanalytic history and procedure make it im-
possible to believe that suggestion can have exercised the influence which
is ascribed to it by certain critics of psychoanalysis. These arguments are
concerned principally with the mind of the analyst. Another line of
defense is to consider the mind of the analysand and to show that his
attitude is such as to preclude the influence of suggestion on the imagined
scale. It is pointed out that the transference situation, which determines
the attitude of the analysand to the anah^st, is based upon a repetition or
re-living, not only of the love, respect, and admiration that has been
felt by the analysand towards important persons in his earlier life, but
also of the hate, jealousy, and envy that he has felt towards the same or
other persons. Although the first-named elements of the transference
undoubtedly favor a receptive attitude (and indeed according to psy-
choanalytic views are essential for the operation of suggestion under any
circumstances), the more hostile elements which compose the "negative"
aspects of the transference lead, on the contrary, to an attitude of ob-
stinacy and suspicion, which predisposes the patient to discount or dis-
believe what is said by the analyst. Indeed many patients are far more
acutely critical of psychoanalysis than are any theoretical opponents.
Since these hostile elements inevitably dominate the situation for a great
part (in many cases the major part) of the analysis, the picture of the
384 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
tl
docile patient gladly accepting the interpretations of the analyst is in
reality very far removed indeed from the truth.
It is true, however, that no analysis is possible in the face of complete
and permanent hostility; the positive elements of the transference do un-
doubtedly play an essential, though by no means an exclusive, part in
the analysis. Here, it may be said, is after all a means by v^hich sug-
gestion becomes effective in the end. The psychoanalytic reply to this
renew^ed charge is that in psychoanalysis, as distinct from all other psy-
chotherapeutic methods, the transference itself is analyzed. The aim of
the analyst, vv^hen faced with a positive transference is the same as that
when he is faced with a negative transference; in both cases he en-
deavors to trace the affective attitude of the patient to its source in
earlier emotional relationships, and, in so far as he is successful, the
patient is ultimately freed from any abnormal dependence on, or any
unreasonable love or hate towards, the analyst. The fact that the
positive transference supplies an important driving force for the whole
work of analysis does not alter the analytic procedure with regard to
it; like a scaffolding that is essential for the construction of a building,
it is removed Avhen the construction itself is finished. Indeed its re-
moval is essential for the final stages of the work, and the process of
removal is recognized by psychoanalj^sts as one of the most difficult and
delicate portions of their task; an over-strong positive transference, which
makes a patient unwilling to break with the analyst, is one of the severest
obstacles that is liable to be encountered, impeding as it does both psy-
chological exploration and therapeutic effect (although in initial stages
it may have helped in both these directions).
Summing up, therefore, under this head, it is maintained that the
positive transference cannot account for the great suggestive influence
that is sometimes credited to it, and this for three reasons:
a) It is more than counterbalanced by the negative transference.
b) It is apt to hinder rather than to help the analysis itself (except
perhaps in the earliest stages).
c) It is itself analyzed and dissolved in successfully completed an-
alj^ses.
6) The arguments against the view that psychoanalytic findings are
due to suggestibility in the patient are strongly reinforced by the fact that
similar findings have been made in the case of psychotic patients (e.g.,
paranoids, manic depressives, schizophrenics — who are notoriously not
amenable to suggestion).
There is here a question of simple observation and report of the
spontaneous utterances and interpretations of the patients themselves
rather than of interpretation by the analyst. Indeed most of the ob-
servations made on insanity do not require the psychoanalytic method at
all, and thus should, strictly speaking, be classed under the (second)
heading of independent corroborative evidence.
7) The last two arguments lead on naturally to certain wider con-
siderations, which, in the view of psychoanalysts themselves, have probably
J. C. FLUGEL 385
more weight than all the other replies to criticisms with which we have
dealt. What is true of the mind of the analysand is, psychoanalysts
would maintain, true of the human mind in general. The power of sug-
gestion can be overrated as regards both the process of analysis and human
life as a whole. Indeed it may be said that the fear of suggestion may
easily, and often does, take on a neurotic quality. The discovery of
"suggestion" by psychology has been followed by something in the nature
of a phobia, in which one important part of this discovery, viz., that sug-
gestion depends upon an inner subjective process and not upon an ex-
ternal power, is apt to be forgotten or discounted. Psychoanalysis it-
self has greatly added to this aspect of our psychological knowledge by
showing that the subjective process in question consists in exteriorizing
or "projecting" certain inner mental forces (connected ultimately with
the parent imagines and embodied in the "superego"). It is only in virtue
of such a projection on to another person that this person can acquire
anything resembling that formidable and dangerous power which those
who fear suggestion have in mind. The supposed danger of exposing
oneself to suggestion at the hands of the psychoanalyst is largely due, there-
fore, to a fear of our own unconscious thus projected. This supposed
danger can take different forms in different individuals. The plain
man thinks it is his mental or moral health that is in jeopardy. The
psychologist (by a process of rationalization) thinks it is his power of
scientific judgment.
With this argument the psychoanalyst definitely carries the war into
his opponent's territory, by asserting that the alarm which certain psy-
chologists have displayed as regards the influence of suggestion is a psy-
chological reaction to the threat of exposure of their unconscious forces
— a threat which, of course, the very existence of psychoanalysis entails.
In so far as there is truth in this view, it is likely to prove ultimately
of much greater avail than all the other lines of defense that we have
examined. It makes it possible to show that the objections are them-
selves in the nature of neurotic manifestations of a phobia, whereas, if
we once accept the objections at their face value, detailed refutation of
them, however logically compelling, is likely to meet with no more
success than is elsewhere encountered by attempts to combat a neurotic
fear by conscious reasonings.
So much for the first method of defense, which endeavors to clear
the process of analysis itself from the charges of being vitiated by sug-
gestive influences. The second method of defense is wider and less
specific in its range and purpose. It consists of the attempt to show that
psychoanalytic conclusions can be verified by independent evidence. We
may perhaps distinguish two main varieties of this method, according to
whether the endeavor is to show {a) that actual data obtained by the
psychoanalytic method can be objectively tested, or {b) that the general
conclusions arrived at by the employment of the psychoanalytic method
are in harmony with facts that are available quite independently of
this method and that cannot possibly be affected by psychoanalytic
views.
386 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
1) In the first variety there fall such procedures as the verification
of infantile memories recovered during analysis, the detection of com-
plexes or character qualities in unknown persons who have submitted to
an analyst a written report of certain of their dreams, the foretelling of
events (e.g., a divorce) in the history of individuals on the basis of their
symptoms or their writings, or — more generally — the foretelling of future
social tendencies (e.g., the desire to return to the gold standard after the
war) on the basis of psychoanalytic insight into the unconscious mean-
ing of these tendencies. Under this heading may also be included such
control experiments as the attempted analysis of artificial dreams com-
posed by selecting words at random from a dictionary — an experiment
which, by the reported failure of the analysis, provided evidence in favor
of the genuineness of the analytic results in other cases.
On the whole, the work done along these lines, though occasionally
impressive, has been small in quantity and unsystematic in character.
The only serious attempt at such objective verification on a larger scale
has been by means of Jung's word-association experiment, which clearly
shows the existence of affective tendencies that can in some cases be dis-
covered only by the psychoanalytic method itself. But the full pos-
sibilities of even this experiment do not seem to have been exhausted ; it
is usually emplo^^ed as a means of preliminary orientation for analysis
rather than as a means of control, such as it might have afforded if it
had been used by a second analyst who drew from it such conclusions as
were possible and then compared these conclusions with those of a col-
league in charge of the psychoanalysis itself.
In the paucity of attempts at objective control along these lines we
may perhaps see a regrettable consequence of the dissociation between
psychoanalysis and experimental psychology. Most psychoanalysts, being
primarily therapeutists, were little interested in the niceties of experi-
mental control which are here in question. It is greatly to be hoped
that a rapprochement between analysts and experimentalists will, in the
near future, lead to a fruitful cooperation in this field.
2) Incomparably more work has been done along the second line.
Some of this work lies in fields that are not far removed from that of
the psychoanalytic method itself, fields that are connected primarily
with the psychological examination of the individual mind. Another
part of the work, as already indicated, has been concerned with matters
that are remote from the regions of therapeutics or of individual psy-
chology, employing for the most part data provided by anthropology,
mythology, history, and aesthetics.
As an example of the first kind we may cite the work on parapraxia
("the psychopathology of everyday life") and on wit. Freud originally
showed — and many others have corroborated him — that human behavior
within these fields exhibits much the same processes as those revealed
by the psychoanalytic method in neurosis and in dreams, and, in particular,
that such behavior is largely determined by unconscious motivations and
by intra-psychic conflict. The great advantage of these fields for demon-
J. C. FLUGEL 387
strations of psychoanalytic conclusions is that the mechanisms involved
are, as a rule, much simpler than those of neurotic symptoms or of
dreams (at least of adults' dreams) and that it is easy to point out that in
many cases the psychoanalytic interpretation is spontaneously adopted by
those who know nothing whatever of psychoanalysis. Thus we all tend to
take offense if our name is misspoken or misspelled, or if anothr name is
substituted for it ; we are likewise hurt when a rendezvous is cut, and the
plea that it was forgotten does not mollify our feelings. In fact we
feel and behave just as if the mistakes and forgettings were psychically
determined, just as if a person wished to show that we are not sufficiently
important to make it worth his while to remember our name or the ap-
pointment he has made with us. Indeed such "mistakes" may be de-
liberately produced (as when in a play one character persistently ad-
dresses the other by the wrong name) and are always understood in the
psychoanalytic sense (in this case as a sign of contempt). It would be
possible, starting from such simple and universally understood examples,
to construct a series of instances of gradually increasing complexity,
ending with cases which require elaborate treatment by the psychoanalytic
method before their meaning is revealed. The argument from contin-
uity here speaks powerfully in favor of the psychoanalytic interpretation
in the latter cases.
Not only the general fact of unconscious motivation but many of
the detailed mechanisms through which it manifests itself — conden-
sation, allusion, symbolization, etc. — are illustrated in humor and para-
praxia. Thus, whole classes of wit depend upon that simple form of
condensation which is employed in the pun. The pun itself, however,
often indicates some sexual or hostile tendency as well as pure pleasure
in the play of words, and there is again a continuous transition from the
pun or double entendre to the distortion of a word in order to express
some hidden tendency (as when I myself in a lecture once had the mis-
fortune to refer to Schrotter — a writer who had, to my annoyance, an-
ticipated some observations of my own — as Storer [i.e., "disturber"] ) .
Similarly with symbolism. In France I once witnessed a "curtain raiser"
where the scene took place in a dentist's consulting room. The dentist
who carried out a variety of operations on the teeth of a female patient,
continually described these operations in terms which left no doubt that
they were veiled allusions to various sexual procedures, and the whole
effect of the play depended upon an appreciation of this symbolisni — which
indeed appeared to be understood by everyone. There was here a com-
plete parallelism between the indirect expressions employed for the pur-
poses of humor and the symbolism so frequently found in dreams ("dis-
placement from below upwards," in this case from vulva to mouth).
Conversely, dreams sometimes employ expressions which could easily be
used for purposes of double entendre or other forms of humor, as when
in a dream the idea of semen is depicted by a group of sailors ("sea-
men"), or when the contrasted ideas of freedom to roam abroad and the
necessity of remaining in a cramped and crowded home environment are
388 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
symbolized by two individuals called respectively "Mr. Percy Forty"
(= passport) and "the Sardine" (from the phrase "packed like sar-
dines").
Coming novi^ to w^ider fields that are remote from direct psychoanalytical
considerations, an essential feature of the psychoanalytic application along
these lines is that the data themselves were not collected by psychoanalysts,
but are common property, having been given to the world by the labors
of artists, anthropologists, mythologists,. historians, and literary men, or
in other cases having been handed down and well known for many gener-
ations. In dealing with this material we entirely obviate the disad-
vantage that inevitably appertains to data gathered by the psychoanalytic
method proper, namely, that it is almost impossible to present to others
the full material as it was available to the analyst himself. On the
contrary, the same data now confront both the psychoanalyst and his
critic. The question is: How far are these data in harmony with psy-
choanalytical conclusions drawn from clinical material? If the agree-
ment is striking, it does not prove the correctness of psychoanalytical
deductions in any given case or from any given patient, but it does raise
a strong presumption in favor of the general validity of these conclu-
sions.
Now, actually of course, psychoanalysts have appealed to parallels of
very different degrees of cogency, or at least of obviousness. In some
instances the parallel is beyond all dispute. If psychoanalysts have found
that men in their unconscious minds have wished to kill or castrate their
fathers, to cohabit with their mothers, or to eat their children, it cannot
be denied that these unseemly desires are portrayed as actual occurrences
in myth; where, for instance, Oedipus (albeit unknowingly — correspond-
ing to a repression of the wish) marries his mother after murdering his
father, where Cronos castrates his father and is in turn castrated by his
son, having in the interval developed a cannibalistic taste for the flesh
of his own children. The only conceivable way to deny the validity of the
parallel would be to take a weapon resembling that of the psychoanalyst
himself and to say that these myths are themselves only symbolic, that
they do not mean what they appear to mean, but are indirect represent-
ations of (say) the sunrise, the sunset, or the change of seasons. But this
would be to revive a line of thought which (though it admittedly con-
tains some truth) no longer finds much favor with mythologists. It
leaves us, too, with the awkward problem as to why the indirect represent-
ations in question should have taken such repulsive forms (for even if
we regard the ancient myth-makers as merely nasty-minded forerunners
of the modern psychoanalyst, it is scarcely possible to account for the
persistence of their myths for countless generations except on the as-
sumption that they made a very general appeal).
In other cases the myths themselves are not clear portrayals of the
tendencies that analysts profess to find in the unconscious of their patients,
but are themselves, it is maintained, symbolic of these tendencies — the
symbolism, however, being much the same as that which is found within
J. C. FLUGEL 389
the individual mind. Here the value of the corroborative evidence, if
any, is more difficult to weigh. The fact that conclusions drawn from
a study of the individual mind can be applied to products of the group
mind (such as myths) adds to the interest and importance of these con-
clusions if they are correct, but it does not in itself prove their correctness;
it may indicate merely that the analyst is committing the same mistake
in both cases, and to maintain that we have "proved" a piece of dream
symbolism by applying our interpretation to a piece of mythology and
then triumphantly pointing to the correspondence, is to argue in a circle.
But if there are circumstances in the myth itself which, independently
of clinical experience, point to the correctness of the interpretation, then
we have really obtained an objective corroboration of the general pos-
sibility of such symbolism's occurring in the human mind. Such would
be the case, for instance, if historical evidence concerning the develop-
ment of the myth showed that it had gradually acquired the symbolic
form and had originally represented the psychoanalytic interpretation
in an undisguised way. Only slightly less convincing would be the dis-
covery of an undisguised variant of the myth among the same or neigh-
boring people. Actually, of course, such attempted verification has most
often taken the form of collecting more or less numerous variants,
each of which seems to support the interpretation in one way or another.
In the course of this work psychoanalysts have found themselves involved
in a fierce anthropological controversy between the modern followers of
Bastian and his Elementargedanken upon the one hand and the new his-
torical or diffusionist school upon the other. The psychoanalyst in the
search for anthropological parallels for the facts which he believes him-
self to have discovered by his own methods tends to be more interested
in the point of view of the former school. As a psychologist, too, deal-
ing with apparently fundamental and deep-lying processes (processes, too,
which exhibit in their general characteristics a most striking resemblance
from one patient to another), he is likely to expect an essential similar-
ity in the products of the human mind, even though obscured by super-
ficial differences of time and place and culture. Indeed his work seems
to provide a very striking corroboration of the fundamental idea under-
lying the theory of Bastian, inasmuch as it reveals a surprising constancy
in the nature of the more important symbolical relationships, which
appear to remain largely influenced by conscious contacts. But there
is no necessary antagonism between the work of the psychoanalysts and
that of the diffusionists — and this in spite of the violent attacks that have
been made on psychoanalytical interpretations by members of the latter
school. To trace the history and diffusion of human culture through its
various migrations is a useful and important undertaking, but to show
historically how a given belief or practice has migrated does not absolve
us in the least from the task of considering its psychological significance,
any more than a complete account of the life of a historical person from
the cradle to the grave should lead us to suppose that that person was a
robot devoid of thoughts or plans or wishes.
390 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
Nevertheless it remains true, of course, that the attempt to obtain corro-
borative evidence for psychoanalytic findings from anthropological material
must pay due regard to historical evidence and, failing this, historical
likelihood. It is for psychoanalytic purposes less convincing, for instance,
to compare tw^o apparent variants for the same myth if they come from
two very different parts of the w^orld (and may therefore have had very
different histories) than if they are found in allied peoples and neighbor-
ing localities, and are therefore almost certainly variations of the same
theme; vrhile, on the other hand, mere difference of locality does not
guarantee the separate and spontaneous employment of the same symbolic
expression, unless it can be clearly shown that there is ho possibility of
the myth's having been passed from one locality to the other by means of
culture contact. But, when all due precautions of this kind are taken,
the psychoanalyst is still able to point to so many cases in which a number
of variants of the same myth, so to speak, interpret each other (by pro-
viding a series of steps from undisguised wish-fulfilment to highly dis-
torted and symbolic expressions of a corresponding wish) that he may
justly claim to have established in this way an independent corroboration
of many of his clinical discoveries; in the sense that, even if these clinical
discoveries had never been made, it would still be theoretically possible to
draw the same conclusions from a study of the myths alone.
What we have here said with regard to myths holds good also, mutatis
mutandis, to other anthropological material (e.g., comparative theology
and ritual) and to the data obtainable from history, biography, and art.
In view of the undoubted difficulties that attend the proof of conclusions
drawn solely from material gathered by the psychoanalytic method, such
independent verification from sources that are open to the fullest investiga-
tion by all vv^ould seem to be of the highest importance from the scientific
point of view.
Insofar as we admit that psychoanalysts have, along the various lines
we have considered, given satisfactory proof of the essential correctness of
their main contentions, we must admit also that psychoanalysis has opened
up new vistas of the utmost promise and importance, not only for psy-
chology but for all the sciences — both pure and applied — that deal with
human behavior and human institutions. If, as psychoanalysts maintain,
human conduct is largely determined by mental tendencies that are nor-
mally unconscious, and if psychoanalysis provides us with a means of
bringing these tendencies to consciousness and thus making them accessible
to understanding and control, then it would seem that a most important
step has been taken towards the overcoming of what is by universal ad-
mission the greatest menace to our present culture — man's ignorance, and
consequent imperfect mastery, of himself, an ignorance which, so long as
it persists, renders the advances of physical science at least as dangerous
as they are beneficial. The inner conflicts revealed by psychoanalysis
within the individual's mind, conflicts which entail an immeasurable quan-
tity of suffering and inefficiency, are paralleled by social, national, and
racial conflicts, which, at the lowest estimate, cause a vast amount of
J. C. FLUGEL 391
waste and friction, and, in the opinion of many able judges, threaten the
very existence of human culture. At present, owing to these conflicts,
man can make but little intelligent use of his intellectual powers or scien-
tific knowledge, because both are liable to be employed in the service of
unconscious motives, of the nature and goals of which he has but little
understanding. If psychoanalysis can increase that understanding, new
and dazzling possibilities are opened up for human evolution guided by
conscious and intelligent desire.
It would seem, in fact, no exaggeration to say that psychoanalysis has
it in its power definitely to increase the importance of the biological role
of consciousness (with its uniquely delicate powers of reasoning and
discrimination), since it can extend the range of biological processes that
are capable of entering the field of consciousness. The significance of
psychology will be correspondingly extended ; indeed it is likely to become
the most important of all the sciences, as far as human welfare is con-
cerned, and will probably be regarded as fundamental to all the applied
sciences of human life (politics, law, economics, etc.), in much the same
way as chemistry and physics are fundamental to all the arts of manipu-
lating our physical environment. The great contribution that psycho-
analysis is destined to make in this extension of psychology is already very
clear. In the present chapter we have only been concerned with the ap-
plications of psychoanalysis to wider fields, in so far as these applications
help us to estimate the general validity of psychoanalysis itself. If we
grant this validity, however, it at once becomes apparent that not only do
these applications of a psychological viewpoint to other fields enrich psy-
chology itself (psychoanalysis has for the first time created a true com-
parative psychology of human life, in which illuminating comparisons can
be made between the individual mental products of childhood and maturity,
health and disease, and the products of group life as manifested in myth,
belief, and institution), but that they immensely deepen our outlook on
these other fields, by enabling us to contemplate social phenomena in the
light of the fundamental motives that produce them.
As in the case of individual analyses, a conscious realization of the
motives underlying social conduct tends to make possible a rationally con-
trolled modification or readjustment of these motives and of our attitude
towards them. It is pretty clear that in certain ways psychoanalysis is
already producing such a modification of our social life, as the result of
the diffusion of some of the more general results of psychoanalytic inquiry
and of a more widespread realization of the importance and value of the
psychological standpoint in studying conduct — social and individual.
This is particularly marked in the field of sex, where an increased free-
dom of thought and discussion — largely due to the filtration of the simpler
psychoanalytic concepts into literature and journalism — is tending slowly
to replace the intolerance and hypocrisy of the last century. Through
psychoanalysis the idea is gradually gaining ground that suppression and
dogmatic adherence to ancient codes is not necessarily the only — or indeed
the best — method of dealing with the sexual difHculties of our time. In
392 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
this field psychoanalysis has not only increased our scientific knowledge of
a most important part of psychological and sociological reality, but has
increased the general ability to contemplate this portion of reality without
shame or panic.
Great as this social achievement is, it seems likely to be overshadowed
sooner or later by an even greater one. The psychoanalytic researches of
the last few years into the structure of the ego have resulted in discoveries
about the nature and development of human morality, which, when in
turn they begin to become part of general knowledge, cannot but produce
a far-reaching critical discussion of our most fundamental ethical concep-
tions. These recent researches have shown, in the words of Freud, that
"the normal man is not only far more immoral than he believes, but is
also far more moral than he has any idea of." The morality that is here
in question (the "super-ego" in psychoanalytic terminology) is, however,
the morality of the unconscious, and partakes of many of the characteris-
tics of the unconscious that have already become familiar through the
earlier psychoanalytic investigations of the libido. It is, for instance,
archaic and infantile in its origin and pattern, it is modified only slowly,
if at all, by the experiences of later life, it lacks all delicate discrimination,
and is but little in touch with outer reality. Owing to these attributes,
it is often incompatible with conscious moral standards, which, in persons
of intellect and education, are, in our present society, apt to be greatly
modified by reflection, teaching, and experience, as life proceeds. Our
unconscious morality is therefore liable to condemn much that consciously
we should approve or at least regard as harmless. This relative inaccessi-
bility of our unconscious morality to "real" considerations leads to one
particularly important differentiating feature: an inability to distinguish
adequately between immoral desires on the one hand and immoral actions
on the other, the former being treated as harshly as the latter. Harshness
indeed is another general characteristic of the super-ego. One of the
most startling of the revelations of psychoanalysis concerns the human
capacity for unconscious self-punishment in response to an unconscious
sense of guilt. This irrational "need for punishment" is the cause of an
incalculable amount of human misery and loss of efficiency, which may be
removed in so far as it proves possible to bring our unconscious morality
into closer relation with our conscious apprehension of reality. The pos-
sibilities in this direction for the emancipation of the human mind and of
human culture are themselves immense. But even this is not the whole
story. One of the most surprising features of our unconscious morality
is what one brilliant investigator has illuminatingly called its "corrupti-
bility." In spite of its severity, it is often willing to permit a certain
license to immoral and anti-social tendencies, on one condition, viz., that
compensatory suffering be endured. This suffering may be relatively in-
dependent of the gratification of the tendencies in question (indeed it may
be projected and thus become vicarious!) or — at the other extreme — it
may be so intimately fused with this gratification as to take the form of
sadistic self-punishment. But, in whatever way it manifests itself, this
J. C. FLUGEL 393
"corruptibility," leading as it does to an unnatural alliance between op-
posing tendencies in the mind rather than to a genuine solution of conflict,^
is in the long run prejudicial to true morality. Indeed there is ample
reason to believe not only that it may lead to a pernicious connivance at
anti-social conduct, but that a large proportion of existing criminality is
actually thus brought about.
Meanvi^hile, returning in conclusion to the more immediate problems
that confront us as students of the mind, the most urgent need from the
point of view of pure science would seem to be the establishment of closer
relations between the psychoanalyst and the "academic" psychologist.
In this matter, questions of method are of supreme importance. Ex-
perimental psychology has worked out methods that are in many ways more
scientifically exact than those of psychoanalysis, but at the expense of
neglecting some of the most important aspects of the mind. It is nearly
thirty years since Titchener wrote that our ignorance of the affective
processes was "something of a scandal to experimental psychology." The
scandal still to a considerable extent remains, but in the meantime psycho-
analysis has achieved far more in this direction than all other schools of
psychology together. Its methods are, however, still highly cumbersome
and inconvenient; it has, in fact, not yet reached the experimental stage.
So far as clinical observation is concerned, psychoanalysts have not as yet
been able to sit down and study by their methods this or that abstracted
problem, as the experimentalists have done. They have simply studied the
human mind as a whole, and, as their experience has widened, their at-
tention has been drawn first to this and then to that aspect of the mind.
Such specially directed research as there has been is concerned almost
entirely with the wider applications of psychoanalysis (psychoanalysis in
our fourth sense). At the present moment, if a graduate student in psy-
chology expresses the desire to do research on psychoanalysis, it is only
along this line, if at all, that he can safely be advised to proceed. If he
were to start to work by direct clinical methods (psychoanalysis in our
first sense), he would first have to submit to a prolonged analysis of him-
self, and then, only after several further years of work, could he hope, by
good fortune and acute observation, to make definite discoveries of his
own. This circumstance seems necessarily to limit very greatly the direct
psychological value of the psychoanalytic method in the hands of pure
psychologists, for (short of endowments on a great scale) very few would
undertake such work, unless they were assured of adequate remuneration.
Such remuneration will, as a rule, come only from the use of psychoanalysis
for therapeutic purposes, and here, too, its use is apt to be limited by the
high cost of the lengthy treatment. Eventually, however, funds may be
forthcoming, which (as in the case of other forms of therapy) may make
it possible to apply an expensive form of treatment to a large number of
patients at small cost to themselveso Indeed there are already a number
*If one seeks for a social parallel, one is reminded of the cooperation of the
churches and of the bootleggers towards the maintenance of prohibition.
394 . PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
of psychoanalytic clinics where work of this kind is carried out. An ex-
tension of this work will open up greater possibilities for the collection
of psychoanalytic data on a large scale and will make it worth while foi
promising students of psychology to specialize in this direction.
Lastly, it has still to be seen how far the obvious difficulties in applying
true experimental methods to psychoanalysis are really insuperable. It may
be that a body of psychologists fully trained both in experimental psychol-
ogy and in psychoanalysis (at present there are scarcely any such) may
find means of overcoming many of these difficulties. It would seem, for
instance, that such subjects as dreams, wit, symbolism, failures of memory,
word association (here, of course, some work has already been done),
moral concepts and feelings, inhibitions occurring during mental work,
spontaneously occurring Einfdlle (such as numbers) — these might serve
as starting-points for analysis by strictly controlled experimental methods.
Such fragmentary experiments on real and artificial dreams as have for
instance been described by Bleuler (a friendly critic) and Wohlgemuth (a
hostile one) might be systematically repeated and extended. Even the
questionnaire method is capable of bringing in useful corroborative
results, (as Conklin's questionnaire on the foster-child phantasy has shown).
What eventual success such methods may achieve it is, of course, impossible
to say at present. In view of the vast benefits that psychology would be
likely to derive, if psychoanalysis could be made amenable to experimental
technique, the attempt seems emphatically to be worth the making.
CHAPTER 21
INDIVIDUAL PSYCHOLOGY*
Alfred Adler
Vienna
The point of departure upon this line of research seems to me to be
given in a work entitled "Die Aggressionstrieb im Leben und in der Neur-
ose," published in 1906 in a collective volume, Heilen und Bilden (1).
Even at that time I was engaged in a lively controversy with the Freudian
school, and in opposition to them, I devoted my attention in that paper to
the relation of the child and the adult to the demands of the external
world. I tried to present, howbeit in a very inadequate fashion, the mul-
tifarious forms of attack and defense, of modification of the self and of
the environment, effected by the human mind, and launched on the mo-
mentous departure of repudiating the sexual aetiology of mental phenomena
as fallacious. In a vague way I saw even then that the impulsive life of
man suffers variations and contortions, curtailments and exaggerations,
relative to the kind and degree of its aggressive power. In accordance with
the present outlook of individual psychology, I should rather say: relative
to the way the power of cooperation has developed in childhood. The
Freudian school, which at that time was purely sexual psychology, has
accepted this primitive-impulse theory without any reservations, as some
of its adherents readily admit.
I myself was too deeply interested in the problem of what determined
the various forms of attack upon the outer world. From my own observa-
tions, and supported by those of older authors, also perhaps guided by the
concept of a locus minoris resistentiae, I arrived at the notion that inferior
organs might be responsible for the feeling of psychic inferiority, and in
the year 1907 recorded my studies concerning this subject in a volume
entitled Studie iiber Minderwertigkeit der Organe und die seelische Kom-
pensation (2). The purpose of the work was to show that children born
with hereditary organic weaknesses exhibit not only a physical necessity
to compensate for the defect, and tend to overcompensate, but that the
entire nervous system, too, may take part in this compensation; especially
the mind, as a factor of life, may suffer a striking exaggeration in the
direction of the defective function (breathing, eating, seeing, hearing,
talking, moving, feeling, or even thinking), so that this overemphasized
function may become the mainspring of life, in so far as a "successful com-
pensation" occurs. This compensatory increase, which, as I showed in
the above-mentioned book, has originated and continued the development
of a human race blessed with inferior organs, may in favorable cases affect
also the endocrine glands, as I have pointed out, and is regularly reflected
in the condition of the sexual glands, their inferiority and their compensa-
*Submitted in German and translated into English for the Clark University-
Press by Susanne Langer.
[395]
396 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
tion — a fact which seemed to me to suggest some connection between
individual traits and physical heredity. The link between organic infer-
iority and psychic effects, which to this day cannot be explained in any
other way, but merely assumed, was evident to me in the mind's experi-
ence of the inferior organ, by which the former is plunged into a
constant feeling of inferiority. Thus I could introduce the body and
its degree of excellence as a factor in mental development.
Experts will certainly not fail to see that the whole of our psychiatry
has tended in this direction, both in part before that time and quite
definitely thereafter. The works of Kretschmer, Jaensch, and many
others rest upon the same basis. But they are content to regard the psychic
minus quantities as congenital epiphenomena of the physical organic in-
feriority, without taking account of the fact that it is the immediate ex-
perience of physical disability which is the key to the failures of perform-
ance, as soon as the demands of the outer world and the creative power
of the child lead it into "wrong" alleys and force upon it a one-sided
interest. What I treated there as failure appeared to me later as a pre-
mature curtailment of the cooperative faculty, the social impulse, and a
greatly heightened interest for the self.
This work also furnished a test for organic inferiority. As proofs of
inferiority it mentions insufficient development of physical form, of re-
flexes, of functions, or retardation of the latter. Defective development
of the nerves in connection with the organ and of the brain-centers in-
volved was also considered. But the sort of compensation which would
under favorable circumstances occur in any one of these parts was always
insisted upon as a decisive factor. A valuable by-product of this study,
and one which has not yet been sufficiently appreciated, was the discovery
of the significance of the birthmark for the fact that the embryonic de-
velopment at that point or in that segment had not been quite successful.
Schmidt, Eppinger, and others have found this insight correct in many
respects. I feel confident that in the study of cancer, too, as I suggested in
this connection, the segmental naevus will someday furnish a clue to the
aetiology of carcinoma.
In trying thus to bridge the chasm between physical and mental devel-
opments by a theory that vindicated in some measure the doctrine of
heredity, I did not fail to remark explicitly somewhere that the stresses
engendered by the relation between the congenitally inferior organ and the
demands of the external world, though, of course, they were greater than
those which related to approximately normal organs, were none the less
mitigated, to some degree, by the variability of the world's demands; so
that one really had to regard them as merely relative. I repudiated the
notion of the hereditary character of psychological traits, in that I re-
ferred their origin to the various intensities of organic functions in each
individual. Afterwards I added to this the fact that children, in cases
of abnormal development, are without any guidance, so that their activity
(aggression) may develop in unaccountable ways. The inferior organs
offer a temptation but by no means a neccessity for neuroses or other
mental miscarriages. Herewith I established the problem of the educa-
ALFRED ADLER 397
tion of such children, with prophylaxis as its aim, on a perfectly sound
footing. Thus the family history, with all its plus and minus factors,
became an index to the serious difficulties which might be expected and
combatted in early childhood. As I said at that time, a hostile attitude
toward the world might be the result of excessive stresses which must
express themselves somehow in specific characteristics.
In this way I was confronted with the problem of character. There
had been a good deal of nebulous speculations on this subject. Character
was almost universally regarded as a congenital entity. My conviction
that the doctrine of congenital mental traits was erroneous helped me
considerably. I came to realize that characters were guiding threads,
ready attitudes for the solution of the problems of life. The idea of an
"arrangement" of all psj^chical activities became more and more convincing.
Therewith I had reached the ground which to this day has been the
foundation of individual psychologj', the belief that all psychical phenomena
originate in the particular creative force of the individual, and are ex-
pressions of his personality.
But who is this driving force behind the personality? And why do we
find mostly individuals whose psychological upbuilding was not successful?
Might it be that, after all, certain congenitally defective impulses, i.e.,
congenital vreaknesses, decided the fate of our mental development, as
almost all psychiatrists supposed? Is it due to a divine origin that an
individual, that the human race may progress at all?
But I had realized the fact that children who were born with defective
organs or afflicted by injuries early in life go wrong in the misery of their
existence, constantly deprecate themselves, and, usually, to make good
this deficiency, behave differently all their lives from what might be ex-
pected of normal people. I took another step, and discovered that children
may be artificially placed in the same straits as if their organs were de-
fective. If we make their work in very early life so hard that even their
relatively normal organs are not equal to it, then they are in the same
distress as those with defective physique, and from the same unbearable
condition of stress they will give wrong answers as soon as life puts their
preparation to any test. Thus I found two further categories of children
who are apt to develop an abnormal sense of inferiority — pampered children
and hated children.
To this period of my complete defection from Freud's point of view,
and absolute independence of thought, date such works as Die seelische
Wirzel der Trigeminusneuralgie (3), in which I attempted to show how,
besides cases of organic origin, there were also certain ones in which ex-
cessive partial increase of blood-pressure, caused by emotions such as rage,
may under the influence of severe inferiority feelings give rise to physical
changes. This was followed by a study, decisive for the development of
individual psychology, entitled Das Problem der Distanz, wherein I dem-
onstrated that every individual, by reason of his degree of inferiority
feeling, hesitated before the solution of one of the three great problems of
life, stops or circumvents, and preserves his attitude in a state of exag-
gerated tension through psychological symptoms. As the three ereat
398 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
problems of life, to which everyone must somehow answer by his attitude,
I named: (a) society, (b) vocation, (c) love. Next came a work on
Das' Unbewusste, wherein I tried to prove that upon deeper inspection
there appears no contrast between the conscious and the unconscious, that
both cooperate for a higher purpose, that our thoughts and feelings become
conscious as soon as we are faced with a difficulty, and unconscious as soon
as our personality-value requires it. ' At the same time I tried to set forth
the fact that that which other authors had used for their explanations
under the name of conflict, sense of gmlt, or ambivalence was to be re-
garded as symptomatic of a hesitant attitude, for the purpose of evading
the solution of one of the problems of life. Ambivalence and polarity of
emotional or moral traits present themselves as an attempt at a multiple
solution or rejection of a problem.
This and some other works dating from the time of the self-emancipa-
tion of individual psychology have been published in a volume bearing the
title Praxis und Theorie der Individualpsychologie (6). This was also
the time when our great Stanley Hall turned away from Freud and
ranged himself with the supporters of individual psychology, together
with many other American scholars who popularized the "inferiority and
superiority complexes" throughout their whole country.
I have never failed to call attention to the fact that the whole human
race is blessed with deficient organs, deficient for coping with nature ; that
consequently the whole race is constrained ever to seek the way which will
bring it into some sort of harmony with the exigencies of life; and that
we make mistakes along the way, very much like those we can observe in
pampered or neglected children. I have quoted one case especially, where
the errors of our civilization may influence the development of an individ-
ual, and that is the case of the underestimation of women in our society.
From the sense of female inferiority, which most people, men and women
alike, possess, both sexes have derived an overstrained desire for masculin-
ity, a superiority complex which is often extremely harmful, a will to
conquer all difficulties of life in the masculine fashion, which I have called
the masculine protest.
Now I began to see clearly in every psychical phenomenon the striving
for superiority. It runs parallel to physical growth. It is an intrinsic
necessity of life itself. It lies at the root of all solutions of life's prob-
lems, and is manifested in the way in which we meet these problems.
All our functions follow its direction ; rightly or wrongly they strive
for conquest, surety, increase. The impetus from minus to plus is
never-ending. The urge from "below" to "above" never ceases. What-
ever premises all our philosophers and psychologists dream of— self-
preservation, pleasure principle, equalization — all these are but vague
representations, attempts to express the great upward drive. The his-
tory of the human race points in the same direction. Willing, thinking,
talking, seeking after rest, after pleasure, learning, understanding, work
and love, betoken the essence of this eternal melody. Whether one thinks
or acts more wisely or less, one always moves along the lines of that up-
ward tendency. In our right and wrong conceptions of life and its prob-
ALFRED ADLER 399
lems in the successful or the unsuccessful solution of any question, this
striving for perfection is uninterruptedly at work. And even where foolish-
ness and imbecility, inexperience, seem to belie the fact of any strivmg to
conquer some defect, or tend to depreciate it, yet the will to conquer is
really operative. From this net-work which in the last analysis is
simply given with the relationship "man-cosmos," no one may hope to
escape For even if anyone wanted to escape, yes, even if he could escape,
he would still find himself in the general system, strivmg upward, from
"below " This does not only fix a fundamental category of thought, the
structure of our reason, but what is more, it yields the fundamental fact
of our life. , , . . r • r ^ ^^i„
The origin of humanity and the ever repeated beginning of mf ant life
rubs it in with every psychic act: "Achieve! Arise! Conquer) This
feeling is never absent, this longing for the abrogation of every imperfec-
tion In the search for relief, in Faustian wrestling against the forces of
nature, rings always the basis chord: "I relinquish thee not, thou bless me
withal" The unreluctant search for truth, the ever unsatisfied longing
for solution of the problems of life, belongs to this hankermg after per-
fection of some sort. r n • v i ^x.
This now, appeared to me as the fundamental law of all spiritual ex-
pression: that the total melody is to be found again in every one of its
parts, as a greatest common measure— in every individual craving tor
power, for victory over the difficulties of life. _
And therewith I recognized a further premise of my scientific proceed-
ing one which agreed with the formulations of older philosophers but
conflicted with the standpoint of modern psychology: the unity of the
personality. This, however, was not merely^ a premise, but couid to a
certain extent be demonstrated. As Kant has said, we can never under-
stand a person if we do not presuppose his unity. Individual psycho ogy
can now add to that: this unity, which we must presuppose, is the work ot
the individual, which must always continue in the way it once tound
^°These''wer7the considerations which led me to the conviction that early
in life, in the first four or five years, a ffoal is set for the need and drive
of psvchical development, a goal toward which all its currents flow, buch
a goal has not only the function of determining a direction, of promismg
security, power, perfection, but it is also of its essence and of the essence
of the mind that this portentous goal should awaken feelings and emo-
tions through that which it promises them. Thus the individual mitigates
its sense of weakness in the anticipation of its redemption.
Here again we see the meaninglessness of congenital psychic traits. Mot
that we could deny them. We have no possible way of getting at them.
Whoever would, draw conclusions from the results is making matters too
simple He overlooks the thousand and one influences after birth, and
fails to see the power that lies in the necessity of acquiring a goaL
The staking of a goal compels the unity of the personality in that t
draws the stream of all spiritual activity into its definite direction, itselt
a product of the common, fundamental sense of inferiority— a sense de-
\
400 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
rived from genuine weakness, not from any comparison with others — the
goal of victory in turn forces the direction of all powers and possibilities
toward itself. Thus every phase of psychical activity can be seen within
one frame, as though it were the end of some earlier phase and the begin-
ning of a succeeding one. This was a further contribution of individual
psychology to modern psychology in general — that it insisted absolutely on
the indispensability of finalism for the understanding of all psychological
phenomena. No longer could causes, powers, instincts, impulses, and the
like serve as explanatory principles, but the final goal alone. Experiences,
traumata, sexual-development mechanisms could not yield us an explana-
tion, but the perspective in which these had been regarded, the individual
way of seeing them, which subordinates all life to the ultimate goal.
This final aim, abstract in its purpose of assuring superiority, fictitious
in its task of conquering all the difficulties of life, must now appear in
concrete form in order to meet its task in actuality. Deity in its widest
sense, it is apperceived by the childish imagination, and under the exigen-
cies of hard reality, as victory over men, over difficult enterprises, over
social or natural limitations. It appears in one's attitude toward others,
toward one's vocation, toward the opposite sex. Thus we find concrete
single purposes, such as: to operate as a member of the community or to
dominate it, to attain security and triumph in one's chosen career, to
approach the other sex or to avoid it. We may always trace in these
special purposes what sort of meaning the individual has found in his ex-
istence, and how he proposes to realize that meaning.
If, then, the final goal established in early childhood exerts such an in-
fluence for better or worse upon the development of the given psychical
forces, our next question must be : What are the sources of the individuality
which we find in final aims? Could we not quite properly introduce an-
other causal factor here? What brings about the differences of individual
attitudes, if one and the same aim of superiority actuates everyone?
Speaking of this last question, let me point out that our human lan-
guage is incapable of rendering all the qualities within a superiority goal
and of expressing its innumerable differences. Certainty, power, perfection,
deification, superiority, victory, etc., are but poor attempts to illumine its
endless variants. Only after we have comprehended the partial expres-
sions which the final goal effects, are we in any position to determine
specific differences.
If there is any causal factor in the psychical mechanism, it is the com-
mon and often excessive sense of inferiority. But this continuous mood is
only activating, a drive, and does not reveal the way to compensation and
overcompensation. Under the pressure of the first years of life there is
no kind of philosophical reflection. There are only impressions, feelings,
and a desire to renew the pleasurable ones and exclude those which are
painful. For this purpose all energies are mustered, until motion of some
sort results. Here, however, training or motion of any sort forces the
establishment of an end. There is no motion without an end. And so,
in this way, a final goal becomes fixed which promises satisfaction. Per-
haps, if one wanted to produce hypotheses, one might add: Just as the
ALFRED ADLER 401
body approximates to an ideal form which is posited with the germ-plasm,
so does the mind, as a part of the total life. Certainly it is perfectly
obvious that the soul (mind — das seelische Organ) exhibits some system-
atic definite tendency.
From the time of these formulations of individual psychology dates my
book, Ueber den nervosen Charakter (7), which introduced finalism into
psychology with especial emphasis. At the same time I continued to
trace the connection between organic inferiority and its psychological con-
sequences, in trying to show how in such cases the goal of life is to be
found in the type of overcompensation and consequent errors. As one of
these errors I mentioned particularly the masculine protest, developed
under the pressure of a civilization which has not yet freed itself from its
overestimation of the masculine principle nor from an abuse of antithetic
points of view. The imperfection of childish modes of realizing the
fictitious ideal was also mentioned here as the chief cause for the differ-
ences in style of living — the unpredictable character of childish expression,
which alwavs moves in the uncontrollable realm of error.
By this time, the system of individual psychology was well enough estab-
lished to be applied to certain special problems. Zum Problem der Homo-
sexualitat (8) exhibited that perversion as a neurotic construct erroneously
made out of early childhood impressions, and recorded researches and find-
ings which are published at greater length in the Handbuch der normalen
und pathologischen Physiologie (9). Uncertainty in the sexual role, over-
estimation of the opposite sex, fear of the latter, and a craving for easy,
irresponsible successes proved to be the inclining but by no means constrain-
ing factors. Uncertainty in the solution of the erotic problem and fear
of failure in this direction lead to wrong or abnormal functioning.
More and more clearly I now beheld the way in which the varieties of
failure could be understood. In all human failure, in the waywardness of
children, in neurosis and neuropsj'^chosis, in crime, suicide, alcoholism,
morphinism, cocainism, in sexual perversion, in fact in all nervous symp-
toms, we may read lack of the proper degree of social feeling. In all my
former work I had employed the idea of the individual's attitude toward
society as the main consideration. The demands of society, not as of a
stable institution but as of a living, striving, victory-seeking mass, were
always present in my thoughts. The total accord of this striving and the
influence it must exert on each, individual had always been one of my
main themes. Now I attained somewhat more clarity in the matter.
However we may judge people, whatever we try to understand about
them, what we aim at when we educate, heal, improve, condemn — ^we
base it always on the same principle: social feeling! cooperation! Any-
thing that we estimate as valuable, good, right, and normal, we estimate
simply in so far as it is "virtue" from the point of view of an ideal
society. The individual, ranged in a community which can preserve itself
only through cooperation as a human society, becomes a part of this great
whole through socially enforced division of labor, through association with
a member of the opposite sex, and finds his task prescribed by this society.
And not only his task, but also his preparation and ability to perform it.
402 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
The unequivocally given fact of our organic inferiority on the face of
this earth necessitates social solidarity. The need of protection of women
during pregnancy and confinement, the prolonged helplessness of child-
hood, gains the aid of others. The preparation of the child for a com-
plicated, but protective and therefore necessary civilization and labor re-
quires the cooperation of society. The need of security in our personal
existence leads automatically to a cultural modification of our impulses and
emotions and of our individual attitude of friendship, social intercourse,
and love. The social life of ma:n emanates inevitably from the man-
cosmos relation, and makes every person a creature and a creator of society.
It is a gratuitous burden to science to ask whether the social instinct is
congenital or acquired, as gratuitous as the question of congenital instincts
of any sort. We can see only the results of an evolution. And if we are
to be permitted a question at all concerning the beginnings of that evolu-
tion, it is only this — whether anything can be evolved at all for which no
possibilities are in any way given before birth. This possibility exists, as
we may see through the results of development, in the case of human
beings. The fact that our sense-organs behave the way they do, that
through them we may acquire impressions of the outer world, may com-
bine these physically and mentally in ourselves, shows our connection
with the cosmos. That trait we have in common with all living creatures.
What distinguishes man from other organisms, however, is the fact that
he must conceive his superiority goal in the social sense as a part of a total
achievement. The reasons for this certainly lie in. the greater need of
the human individual and in the consequent greater mobility of his body
and mind, which forces him to find a firm vantage-point in the chaos of
life, a So? TTov st'o) !
But because of this enforced sociability, our life presents only such
problems which require ability to cooperate for their solution. To hear,
see, or speak "correctly," means to lose one's self completely in another or
in a situation, to become identified with him or with it. The capacity for
identification, which alone makes us capable of friendship, humane love,
pity, vocation, and love, is the basis of the social sense and can be prac-
ticed and exercised only in conjunction with others. In this intended
assimilation of another person or of a situation not immediately given,
lies the whole meaning of comprehension. And in the course of this
identification we are able to conjure up all sorts of feelings, emotions,
and affects, such as we experience not only in dreams but also in waking
life, in neurosis and psychosis. It is always the fixed style of life, the
ultimate ideals, that dominates and selects. The style of life is what
makes our experiences reasons for our attitude, that calls up these feelings
and determines conclusions in accordance with its own purposes. Our very
identification with the ultimate ideal makes us optimistic, pessimistic, hesi-
tant, bold, selfish, or altruistic.
The tasks which are presented to an individual, as well as the means
of their performance, are conceived and formulated within the framework
of society. No one, unless he is deprived of his mental capacities, can
escape from this frame. Only within this framework is psychology pos-
ALFRED ABLER 403
sible at all. Even if we add for our own time the aids of civilization and the
socially determined pattern of our examples, we still find ourselves con-
fronted with the same unescapable conditions.
From this point of vantage we may look back. As far as we can
reasonably determine, it appears that after the fourth or fifth year of life
the style of life has been fashioned as a prototype, with its particular way
of seizing upon life, its strategy for conquering it, its degree of ability to
cooperate. These foundations of every individual development do not
alter, unless perchance some harmful errors of construction are recognized
by the subject and corrected. Whoever has not acquired in childhood the
necessary degree of social sense, will not have it later in life, except under
the above-mentioned special conditions. No amount of bitter experience
can change his style of life, as long as he has not gained understanding.
The whole work of education, cure, and human progress can be furthered
only along lines of better comprehension.
There remains only one question : What influences are harmful and what
beneficial in determining differences in the style of life, i.e., in the capacity
for cooperation?
Here, in short, we touch upon the matter of preparation for cooperation.
It is evident, of. course, that deficiencies of the latter become most clearly
visible when the individual's capacity to cooperate is put to the test. As
I have shown above, life does not spare us these tests and preliminary
trials. We are always on trial, in the development of our sense-organs,
in our attitude toward others, our understanding of others, in our morals,
our philosophy of life, our political position, our attitude toward the wel-
fare of others, toward love and marriage, in our aesthetic judgments, in
our whole behavior. As long as one is not put to any test, as long as one
is without any trials or problems, one may doubt one's own status as a
fellow of the community. But as soon as a person is beset by any prob-
lem of existence, which, as I have demonstrated, always involves cooperative
ability, then it will unfailingly become apparent — as in a geographical
examination — how far his preparation for cooperation extends.
The first social situation that confronts a child is its relation to its
mother, from the very first day. By her educational skill the child's inter-
est in another person is first awakened. If she understands how to train
this interest in the direction of cooperation, all the congenital and acquired
capacities of the child will converge in the direction of social sense. ^ If
she binds the child to herself exclusively, life will bear for it the meaning
that all other persons are to be excluded as much as possible. Its position
in the world is thereby rendered difficult, as difficult as that of defective
or neglected children. All these grow up in a hostile world and develop
a low degree of cooperative sense. Often in such cases there results utter
failure to adjust to the father, brothers and sisters, or more distant per-
sons. If the father fails to penetrate the circle of the child's interest, or
if by reason of exaggerated rivalry the brothers and sisters are excluded,
or if because of some social short-coming or prejudice the remoter environ-
ment is ruled out of its sphere, then the child will encounter serious
trouble in acquiring a healthy social sense. In all cases of failure later
404 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
in life it will be quite observable that they are rooted in this early period
of infancy. The question of responsibility will naturally have to be waived
there, since the debtor is unable to pay what is required of him.
Our findings in regard to these errors and erroneous deductions of early
childhood, which have been gathered from a contemplation of this rela-
tion complex which individual psychology reveals, are exceedingly full.
They are recorded in many articles in the Internationalen Zeitschrift fiir
Individualpsychologie, in my Understanding Human Nature (10), in
Individualpsychologie in der Schule (11), and in Science of Living (12).
These works deal with problems of waywardness, neurosis and psychosis,
criminality, suicide, drunkenness, and sexual perversion. Problems of
society, vocation, and love have been included in the scope of these studies.
In Die Technik der Individualpsychologie (13) I have published a detailed
account of a case of fear and compulsion neurosis.
Individual psychology considers the essence of therapy to lie in making
the patient aware of his lack of cooperative power, and to convince him
of the origin of this lack in early childhood maladjustments. What passes
during this process is no small matter; his power of cooperation is en-
hanced by collaboration with the doctor. His "inferiority complex" is
revealed as erroneous. Courage and optimism are awakened. And the
"meaning of life" dawns upon him as the fact that proper meaning must
be given to life.
This sort of treatment may be begun at any point in the spiritual life.
The following three points of departure have recommended themselves to
me, among others: {a) to infer some of the patient's situation from his
place in the order of births, since each successive child usually has a
somewhat different position from the others; {b) to infer from his
earliest childhood recollections some dominant interest of the individual,
since the creative tendency of the imagination always produces fragments
of the life ideal (Lebensstyl) ; (c) to apply the individualistic interpre-
tation to the dream-life of the patient, through which one may discover
in what particular way the patient, guided by the style-of-life ideal, con-
jures up emotions and sensations contrary to common sense, in order
to be able to carry out his style of life more successfully.
If one seems to have discovered the guiding thread of the patient's life,
it remains to test this discovery through a great number of expressive
gestures on his part. Only a perfect coincidence of the whole and all
the parts gives one the right to say: I understand. And then the ex-
aminer himself will always have the feeling that, if he had grown up
under the same misapprehensions, if he had harbored the same ideal, had
the same notions concerning the meaning of life, if he had acquired an
equally low degree of social sense, he would have acted and lived in
an "almost" similar manner.
REFERENCES
1. AdleRj a. Der aggresslonstrieb im Leben und in der Neurose. In Heilen
und Bilden. (3rd ed.) Munich: Bergmann, 1906.
2. . Studie iiber Minder wertigkeit der Organe und die seelische
Kompensation. (2nd ed.) Munich: Bergmann, 1907. Pp. vii-}-92.
ALFRED ADLER 405
3. . Die seelische Wirzel der Trigeminusneuralgie.
+. . Das Problem der Distanz.
5. . Das Unbewusste.
6. . Praxis und Theorie der Individualpsychologie. (2nd ed.) Munich:
Bergmann, 1924. Pp. v+527.
The practice and theory of individual psychology. New York: Har-,
court, Brace, 1924.
7. . Ueber den nervosen Charakter: Grundzuge einer vergleich-
enden Individualpsychologie und Psychotherapie. Wiesbaden: Bergmann,
1912. Pp. vii+196.
The neurotic constitution: outlines of a comparative individualistic psy-
chology and psychotherapy. (Trans, by B. Glueck & J. E. Lind.) New
York: Moffat, Yard, 1917. Pp. xxiii+4S6.
Zum Problem der Homosexualitat. Munich: Reinhardt, 1917.
(Out of print.)
Handbuch der normalen und pathologischen Physiologie. Berlin:
Springer.
10. . Menschenkenntnis. (2nd ed.) Leipzig: Hirzel, 1928. Pp. vii-j-
230.
Understanding human nature. (Trans, by W. B. Wolfe.) New York:
Greenberg, 1927. Pp. xiii+286.
11. . Individualpsychologie in der Schule. Leipzig: Hirzel.
12. . Science of living. New York: Greenberg, 1929.
13. . Die Technik der Individualpsychologie. I. Die Kuntz, eine Leb-
ens- und Krankengeschichte zu lesen. Munich: Bergmann, 1928. Pp.
iv+146.
The case of Miss R. New York: Greenberg, 1929.
14. . Problems of neurosis. London: Kegan Paul, 1929.
PART XII
SOME OF THE PROBLEMS FUNDAMENTAL
TO ALL PSYCHOLOGY
CHAPTER 22
CONDUCT AND EXPERIENCE
John Dewey
Columbia University
I venture to discuss this topic in its psychological bearings because the
problem as defined for me by the editor is "a logical analysis of behavior
and of experience" as these terms figure in current discussion, controversy,
and psychological inquiry. "Conduct," as it appears in the title, obviously
links itself with the position taken by behaviorists ; "experience," with that
of the introspectionists. If the result of the analysis herein undertaken
turns out to involve a revision of the meaning of both concepts, it will
probably signify that my conclusions will not be satisfactory to either
school ; they may be regarded by members of both as a sterile hybrid rather
than a useful mediation. However, there are many subdivisions in each
school, and there are competent psychologists who decline to enroll in
either, while the very existence of controversy is an invitation to reconsid-
eration of fundamental terms, even if the outcome is not wholly satis-
factory.
Before we enter upon the theme, two general introductory remarks may
be made. One is that the subject is so highly complex and has so many
ramifications that it is impossible to deal with it adequately. The diffi-
culty is increased by the fact that these ramifications extend to a historical,
intellectual background in which large issues of philosophy and epistemol-
ogy are involved, a background so pervasive that even those who have no
interest in, or use for, philosophy would find, if they took the trouble to
investigate, that the words they use — the words we all must use — are
deeply saturated with the results of these earlier discussions. These have
escaped from philosophy and made their way into common thought and
speech.
The other remark is that I have no intention of delimiting or bounding
the field of actual inquiry in psychology by introducing methodological
considerations. On the contrary, I am a firm believer in a variety of
points of approach and diversity of investigations, especially in a subject
as new as psychology is. To a considerable extent, the existence of dif-
ferent schools is at present an asset rather than a liability, for psychology
will ultimately be whatever it is made to be by investigators in the field.
To a certain extent, a variety of points of view serves the purpose that is
met in all the sciences by the principle of multiple hypotheses. While there
is immediate confusion, it may turn out that the variety will, in the end,
secure a greater fullness of exploration than would otherwise have been
the case.
[409]
410 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
The discussion, because of its great complexity, may be introduced by
reference to the controversy, so active about thirty years ago, between
structuralists and functionalists. The introspectionists are more lineal de-
cendants of the structuralists than are the behaviorists of the functionalists,
and I do not mean to equate the terms. A brief review, couched linguisti-
cally in dogmatic terms, will be used as an introduction. The basic error
of the structuralists was, it seems to me, the assumption that the phenomena
they dealt with had a structure which direct inspection could disclose. Ad-
mitting, for the moment, that there are such things as conscious processes
which constitute "experience" and which are capable of direct inspection,
it still involves an immense leap of logic to infer that direct inspection can
disclose their structures. One might go so far as to say that, supposing
that there are such things, they are just the sort of things that are, in their
immediate occurrence, structureless. Or, to put it in a more exact way, if
they have any structure, this is not carried in their immediate presence but
in facts that are external to them and which cannot be disclosed by the
method of direct inspection.
Take, for example, the classification of some of the immediate qualities
as sensations, others as perception, and the sub-classification of sensations
into auditory, visual, tactile, etc. As a classification, it involves an interpre-
tation, and every interpretation goes outside of what is directly observed.
I can attach no meaning to the statement that any immediately present
quality announces, "I am sensory, and of the visual mode." It is called
visual because it is referred to the optical apparatus, and this reference de-
pends upon facts that are wholly external to the quality's own presence:
upon observation of the eyes and anatomical dissection of bodily organs.
The distinction between qualities to which the names "sensation" and "per- 1
ception" are given involves a still more extensive operation of analytic in- I
terpretation, depending upon further considerations objective to what is
immediately present and inspected.
The difficulty cannot be met by saying that a "sensory" quality is im-
mediately given as simple, while a perceptual one is a complex of simples,
for this distinction is itself precisely the result of an analytic interpretation
and not- an immediately given datum. Many "percepts" present themselves
originally as total and undifferentiated, or immediately simple, and the least
discriminable simple quality termed a sensation is itself arrived at as the end-
term of a prolonged research, and is known as an end-term and as simple
only because of extraneous reference to bodily organs, which is itself
made possible by external apparatus.
A simple example is found in the fact that sensorimotor schematism of
some sort is now a commonplace in most psychological literature. If it
could be detected by direct inspection of immediate qualities, it would al-
ways have been a commonplace. In fact, it is a product of an independent
investigation of the morphology and physiology of the nervous sj'stem. If
we generalize from such an instance, we shall be led to say that the structure
of so-called mental process or conscious process, namely, of those immediate
qualities to which the name "experience" was given, is furnished by the
JOHN DEWEY 411
human organism, especially its nervous system. This object is known just
as any other natural object is known, and not by any immediate act called
introspection.
We cannot stop at this point, however. No organism is so isolated that
it can be understood apart from the environment in which it lives. Sen-
sory receptors and muscular effectors, the eye and the hand, have their
existence as well as their meaning because of connections with an outer
environment. The moment the acts made possible by organic structure
cease to have relevancy to the milieu, the organism no longer exists ; it per-
ishes. The organisms that manifest a minimum of structure within them-
selves must have enough structure to enable them to prehend and assimilate
food from their surroundings. The structure of the immediate qualities
that have sometimes been called "consciousness," or "experience" as a syno-
nym for consciousness, is so much external to them that it must be ascer-
tained by non-introspective methods.
If the implication of the last two paragraphs was made explicit, it would
read: The structure of whatever is had by way of immediate qualitative
presences is found in the recurrent modes of interaction taking place between
what we term organism, on one side, and environment, on the other. This
interaction is the primary fact, and it constitutes a trans-action. Only by
analysis and selective abstraction can we differentiate the actual occurrence
into two factors, one called organism and the other, environment. This
fact militates strongly against any form of behaviorism that defines behavior
in terms of the nervous system or body alone. For present purposes, we.
are concerned with the fact as indicating that the structure of consciousness
lies in a highly complex field outside of "consciousness" itself, one that re-
quires the help of objective sciences and apparatus to determine.
We have not finished with the topic of the extent of this objective
structure. It includes within itself a temporal spread. The interactions
of which we have just spoken are not isolated but form a temporal con-
tinuity. One kind of behaviorism is simply a generalized inference from
what takes place in laboratory experimentation plus a virtual denial of the
fact that laboratory data have meaning only with reference to behavior
having a before and after — a from which and an into which. In the lab-
oratory a situation is arranged. Instructions being given to the subject, he
reacts to them and to some, say, visual stimulus. He accompanies this re-
sponse with a language response or record of some sort. This is all which
is immediately relevant to the laboratory procedure. Why, then, speak of
sensations and perceptions as conscious processes? Why not stick to what
actually happens, and speak of behavioristic response to stimuli? It is
no derogation to the originality of those who began the behaviorist move-
ment to say that a behavioristic theory was bound, logically, to emerge
from laboratory procedure. Conscious processes drop out as irrelevant
accretions.
There is something in the context of the experiment which goes beyond
the stimuli and responses directly found within it. There is, for example,
the problem which the experimenter has set and his deliberate arrange-
412 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
ment of apparatus and selection of conditions with a view to disclosure of
facts that bear upon it. There is also an intent on the part of the sub-
ject. Now I am not making this reference to "problem," "selective ar-
irangement," and "intent" or purpose in order to drag in by the heels some-
thing mental over and beyond the behavior. The object is rather to call
j attention to a definite characteristic of behavior, namely, that it is not
' exhausted in the immediate stimuli-response features of the experimenta-
tion. From the standpoint of behavior itself, the traits in question take us
beyond the isolated act of the subject into a content that has a temporal
spread. The acts in question came out of something and move into some-
thing els6. Their whole scientific point is lost unless they are placed as one
phase in this contextual behavior.
It is hardly possible, I think, to exaggerate the significance of this fact
for the concept of behavior. Behavior is serial, not mere succession. It
can be resolved — it must be — into discrete acts, but no act can be under-
stood apart from the series to which it belongs. While the word "be-
havior" implies com-portment, as well as de-portment, the word "conduct"
brings out the aspect of seriality better than does "behavior," for it clearly
involv% the facts both of direction (or a vector property) and of conveying
or conducing. It includes the fact of passing through and passing along.
I do not mean to suggest that behaviorists of the type that treats be-
havior as a succession rather than as serial exclude the influence of tem-
. poral factors. The contrary is the case.^ But I am concerned to point out
the difference made in the concept of behavior according as one merely ap-
peals to the effects of prior acts in order to account for some trait of a present
act, or as one realizes that behavior itself is serial in nature. The first posi-
tion is consistent with regarding behavior as consisting of acts which merely
succeed one another so that each can be understood in terms of what is
actually found in any one act taken by itself, provided one includes the
effects of prior acts as part of the conditions involved in it. The second
position, while, of course, it recognizes this factor, goes further. In in-
troducing into behavior the concept of series, the idea of ordinal position
connected with a principle which binds the successive acts together is em-
phasized.^
The import of the formulation just made may be more definitely gathered
from a consideration of the stimulus-response concept. That every portion
^For example, Hunter says: "Has not the behaviorist always appealed to the
results of heredity and previous training as factors which cooperate with present
stimuli in determining behavior? Was there ever a behaviorist who explained
maze training without calling upon the retained effects of previous training for
a part of his explanation, or a behaviorist who ignored childhood peculiarities
in accounting for adult behavior?" (2, p. 103).
''It is not meant, of course, to carry over in a rigid way the mathematical con-
cept of series, but the idea underlying this concept, namely, that of sequential
continuity, is employed. It is meant that even the instances in which abrupt
succession is most marked, i.e., jumping at a noise when engaged in deep study,
have to be treated as limiting cases of the serial principle and not as typical
cases from which to derive the standard notion of behavior-acts.
JOHN DEWEY 413
of behavior may be stated as an instance of stimulus-response, I do not
doubt, any more than that any physical occurrence may be stated as an in-
stance of the cause-effect relation. I am very sceptical about the value of
the result reached, until that which serves as stimulus and as response in a
given case has been carefully analyzed. It may be that, when the concept
of cause-effect first dawned, some persons got satisfaction by stringing gross
phenomena together as causes and effects. But, as physical science ad-
vanced, the general relation was forgotten by being absorbed into a defi-
nite analytic statement of the particular conditions to which the terms
"cause" and "effect" are assigned. It seems to me that there is considerable
behavioristic and semi-behavioristic theory in psychology at present that is
content merely to subsume the phenomena in question under the rubric of
S-R as if they were ready-made and self-evident things.
When we turn to the consideration of what is a stimulus, we obtain a
result which is fatal to the idea that isolated acts, typified by a reflex, can
be used to determine the meaning of stimulus. That which is, or operates
as, a stimulus turns out to be a function, in a mathematical sense, of be-
havior in its serial character. Something, not yet a stimulus, breaks in
upon an activity already going on and becomes a stimulus in virtue of the
relations it sustains to what is going on in this continuing activity. As
Woodworth has said: "Very seldom does a stimulus find the organism in
a completely resting, neutral and unpreoccupied status" (4, p. 124). The
remark has to be developed, moreover, by noting two additions. The first
repeats what has just been said. No external change is a stimulus in and
of itself. It becomes the stimulus in virtue of what the organism is already
preoccupied with. To call it, to think of it, as a stimulus without taking
into account the behavior that is already going on is so arbitrary as to be
nonsensical. Even in the case of abrupt changes, such as a clap of thunder
when one is engrossed in reading, the particular force of that noise, its
property as stimulus, is determined by what the organism is already doing
in interaction with a particular environment. One and the same environ-
mental change becomes, under different conditions of ongoing or serial
behavior, a thousand different actual stimuli — a consideration which is fatal
to the supposition that we can analyze behavior into a succession of inde-
pendent stimuli and responses.
The difficulty cannot be overcome by merely referring to the operation a
prior response in determining what operates as stimulus, for exactly the
same thing holds of that situation. Nor can it be overcome by vague
reference to the "organism as a whole." While this reference is pertinent
and necessary, the state of the whole organism is one of action which is
continuous, so that reference to the organism as a whole merely puts before
us the situation just described : that environment change becomes a stimulus
in virtue of a continuous course of behavior. These considerations lead us
to the second remark. A stimulus is always a change in the environment
which is connected with a change in activity. No stimulus is a stimulus to
action as such but only to a change in the direction or intensity of ac-
tion. A response is not action or behavior but marks a change in be-
414 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
havior. It is the new ordinal position in a series, and the series is the
behavior. The ordinary S-R statement is seductive merely because it
takes for granted this fact, while if it were explicitly stated it would
transform the meaning of the S-R formula.
The discussion thus far has been so general that it may seem to have
evaded the concrete questions that alone are important. What has all
this to do with the familiar rubrics of analytic psychology, sensation, per-
ception, memory, thinking, etc., or, more generally speaking, with psy-
chology itself? Taking the last question, our conclusion as to the serial
character of behavior and the necessity of placing and determining actual
stimuli and responses within its course seems to point to a definite sub-
ject-matter characteristic of psychology. This subject-matter is the be-
havior of the organism so far as that is characterized by changes taking
place in an activity that is serial and continuous in reference to changes in
an environment that is continuous, while changing in detail.
So far, the position taken gives the primacy to conduct and relates psj^-
chology to a study of conduct rather than to "experience." It is, how-
ever, definitely in opposition to theories of behavior that begin by taking
anything like a reflex as the type and standard of a behavior-act, and that
regard it as possible to isolate and describe stimulus and response as ulti-
mates that constitute behavior, for they themselves must be discovered and
discriminated as specifiable determinations within the course of behavior.
More definitely the position taken points, as it seems to me, to the con-
ception of psychology recently advanced by Dr. Percy Hughes (1),
namely, that psychology is concerned with the life-career of individualized
activities.^ Here we have something which marks off a definite field of
subject-matter and so calls for a distinctive intellectual method and treat-
ment and thus defines a possible science.
The burning questions, however, remain. What meaning, if any, can
be attached to sensation, memory, conceiving, etc., on the basis of con-
duct or behavior as a developing temporal continuum marked off into
specific act-situations? In general, the mode of answer is clear, what-
ever the difficulties in carrying it out into detail. They designate modes
of behavior having their own discernible qualities, meaning by "qualities"
traits that enable one to discriminate and identify them as special modes
of behavior.
Two considerations are pertinent in this connection, of which the
second can best be discussed later along with a discussion of what has
been so far passed over: psychology as an account of "experience." The
first consideration may be introduced by pointing out that hearing, see-
ing, perceiving in general, remembering, imagining, thinking, judging.
^It is not germane to my subject to go into detail, but I cannot refrain from
calling attention to what Dr. Hughes points out, that behaviorism in one of its
narrower senses, — the behavior of the nervous system, — takes its place as a neces-
sary included factor, namely, a study of conditions involved in a study of life-
careers, while whatever is verifiable in the findings of psychoanalysts, etc., also
takes its place in the study of individual life-careers.
JOHN DEWEY 415
reasoning, are not inventions of the psychologist. Taken as designations
of acts performed by every normal human being, they are everyday
common-sense distinctions. What some psychologists have done is to
shove a soul or consciousness under these acts as their author or locus.
It seems to me fair to say that the Wundtian tradition, v^^hile it developed
in the direction of denying or ignoring the soul and, in many cases, of
denying "consciousness" as a unitary power or locus, in its conception of
least-discriminable qualities as identical w^ith ultimate simple "conscious
processes" took a position which did not come from the facts but from
an older tradition.
What we are here concerned with, however, is the fact that the or-
dinary man, apart from any philosophic or scientific interpretation, takes
for granted the existence of acts of this type, which are different from
acts of locomotion and digestion. Such acts, in a purely denotative way
apart from conceptual connotation, constitute the meaning of the word
"mental" in distinction from the physical and purely physiological. Is
the use of "mental" as a designative term of certain modes of behavior
found in every human life-career tabu to one who starts from the stand-
point of behavior in the sense mentioned above?
The issue turns, of course, about the introduction of the idea of dis-
tinctive and discernible qualities that mark off some kinds of behavior and
that supply a ground for calling them mental. To many strict behavior-
ists any reference to qualities seems a reversion to the slough of old in-
trospectionism and an attempt to smuggle its methods in a covert way
into behaviorism. Let us see, then, what happens when the position is
analyzed. We can hardly do better than to start from the fact that the
physicist observes, recalls, thinks. We must note the fact that the things
with which he ends, protons-electrons in their complex interrelations of
space-time and motions, are things with which he ends conclusions. He
reaches them as results of thinking about observed things when his in-
ferences and calculations are confirmed by further observations. What he
starts with are things having qualities, things qualitatively discriminated
from one another and recurrently identifiable in virtue of their qualitative
distinctions.
Dr. Hunter, in justifying the use of ordinary objects, whether of the
environment or the organism in connection with S-R behavior, instead of
trying to formulate everything in terms of protons-electrons, remarks:
"Even in physics it is still permissible to speak of steel and carbon and to
make studies upon these substances without directly involving the question
of the nature of the atom" (2, p. 91; cf. p. 104). To this may be
added that it is not only permissible but necessary. The physicist must
refer to such things to get any point of departure and any point of ap-
plication for his special findings. That water is H2O would reduce
to the meaningless tautology H2O is H2O unless it were identified by
means of the thing known to perception and use as water. ^ Now these
common-sense things from which science starts and in which it terminates
are qualitative things, qualitatively differentiated from one another.
416 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
There can be no more objection, then, to the psychologist's recognizing
objects qualitatively marked out than there is for the physicist and chemist.
It is simply a question of fact, not of theory, whether there are modes of
behavior qualitatively characterized that can be discriminated as acts of
sensation, perception, recollection, etc., and just what their qualitative
traits are. Like other matters of fact, it is to be decided by observation.
I share, however, the feeling against the use of the word "introspection."
For that reason, I employed earlier the word "inspection." "Introspection"
is too heavily charged with meanings derived from the animistic tradition.
Otherwise, it might be fitly used to designate the common act of obser-
vation when directed toward a special kind of subject-matter, that of
the behavior of organisms where behavior is what it is because it is a
phase of a particular life-career of serial activity.
Of course, these general conceptions remain empty until the acts of
sensation, perception, recalling, thinking, etc., with those of fear, love, ad-
miration, etc., are definitely determined as occurring in specified and dis-
tinctive junctures or crises of a life-career. Such a task is undoubtedly
difficult; but so is any other scientific inquiry. The chief objection, it
seems to me, to the narrower forms of behaviorism is that their obsession
against the mental, because of previous false theories about it, shuts
the door to even entering upon the inquiry. It should even be possible
to give the more general term "awareness" or "consciousness" a meaning
on this basis, though it would not be that of an underlying substance, cause,
or source. It would be discerned as a specifiable quality of some forms of
behavior. There is a difFerence between "consciousness" as a noun, and
"conscious" as an adjective of some acts.
Behaviorists have, some of them at least, implicitly admitted the prin-
ciple for which I have been arguing. They have said that the psycho-
logist uses perception, thought, consciousness, just as any other scientist
does. To admit this and then not go on to say (and act upon the say-
ing) that, while they form no part of the subject-matter of physicist and
physiologist, they do form a large part of the subject-matter that sets the
problems of the psychologist seems strange to me — so strange as to sug-
gest an emotional complex.
Personally I have no doubt that language in its general sense, or sym-
bols, is connected with all mental operations that are intellectual in im-
port and with the emotions associated with them, but to substitute lin-
guistic behavior for the quality of acts that renders them "mental" is an
evasion. A man says, "I feel hot." We are told that the whole affair
can be resolved into a sensory process as stimulus and linguistic response.
But what is the sensory process? Is it something exclusively capable of
visual detection in the nervous system under favorable conditions, or is
it something having an immediate quality which is noted without know-
ing about the sensory process as physiological? When a man sees and
reports the latter, is there no immediately experienced quality by which
he recognizes that he is looking at neuronic structures and not, say, at a
JOHN DEWEY 417
balloon? Is ft all a matter of another physiological process and linguistic
response ?
The exposition has brought us to the threshold of the "experience"
psychology. Indeed, it will probably seem to some readers that we have
crossed the threshold and entered a domain foreign to any legitimate be-
havioristic psychology. Let me begin, then, by saying that the logic of the
above account does not imply that all experience is the psychologist's
province, to say nothing of its not implying that all experience is psychic
in character. "Experience" as James pointed out long ago is a double-,
barrelled word. The psychologist is concerned exclusively with ex-
periencing, with detection, analysis, and description of its different modes.
Experiencm<7 has no existence apart from subject-matter experienced; we
perceive objects, veridical or illusory, not percepts; we remember events
and not memories; we think topics and subjects, not thoughts; we love
persons, not loves ; and so on, although the person loved may by metonymy
be called a "love." Experiencing is not itself an immediate subject-matter;
it is not experienced as a complete and self-sufficient event. But every-
thing experienced is in part made what it is because there enters into it a
way of experiencing something ; not a way of experiencing it, which would
be self-contradictory, but a way of experiencing something other than it-
self. No complete account of what is experienced, then, can be given
until we know how it is experienced or the mode of experiencing that
entered into its formation.
Need of understanding and controlling things experienced must have
called attention very early in the history of man to selection from the
total object of the way it is made what it is by the manner in which it
is experienced. I heard it, saw it, touched it, are among the first, as they
are among the most familiar of these discriminations. "I remember seeing
it" would, in some cases at least, be regarded as better evidence for be-
lief than "I remember dreaming it." Such discriminations are not them-
selves psychology, but, as already stated, they form its raw material just
as common-sense determinations of the difference between oil and water,
iron and tin, form the original subject-matter of physics and chemistry.
There is no more reason for denying the reality of one than of the other,
while to deny the reality of either leaves the science in question without
any concrete subject-matter.
The discrimination of various modes of experiencing is enormously in-
creased by the need of human beings for instruction and for direction of
conduct. It is possible, for example, that a person would never differen-
tiate the fact of getting angry from an experienced obnoxious subject-
matter, if others did not call his attention to the role of his own attitude
in the creation of the particular hateful situation. Control of the con-
duct of others is a constant function of life, and it can be secured only by
singling out various modes of experiencing. Thus, when I say that such
selected experiencings or modes of individual behavior supply primary raw
material but are not psychological in themselves, I mean that they are
primarily treated as having moral significance as matters of a character
418 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
to be formed or corrected. They are selected and designated not for any
scientific reason but in the exigencies, real or supposed, of social inter-
course and in the process of social control termed education. The word
"moral" hardly conveys in its usual sense the full idea. A child is told
to look where he is going and to listen to what he is told, to attend to in-
structions given him. Indeed, it is rather foolish to cite instances, so much
of our contact with others consists in having attention called to attitudes,
dispositions, and acts that are referred to ourselves.
Hence, the statement only raises the question of what takes place when
these acts and attitudes, abstracted from the total experience, become
definitely psychological subject-matter. The answer is, in general, that
they set problems for investigation, just as other qualitative objects, fire,
air, water, stars, set problems to other investigations. What is seeing,
hearing, touching, recalling, dreaming, thinking? Now inspection of
these acts to determine their qualities is as necessary as is observation of
physical objects and behaviors to determine their qualities. But just as
no amount of direct observation of water could ever yield a scientific ac-
count of water, so no amount of direct inspection of these individual
attitudes and ways of experiencing could yield a science of psychology.
Observation helps determine the nature of the subject-matter to be studied
and accounted for; it does not carry us beyond suggestions of possible
hypotheses when it comes to dealing scientifically with the subject-matter.
It is at this point that the significance of objective material and methods
comes in, that derived from physiology, biology, and the other sciences.
Identifying modes of individual experiencing with modes of behavior iden-
tified objectively and objectively analyzable makes a science of psychology
possible. Such a statement cuts two ways. It gives due recognition,
or so it seems to me, to the importance of methods that have nothing to
do with the immediate quality of the ways of experiencing, as these are
revealed in direct inspection, or, if you please, introspection. But it also
indicates that the subject-matter which sets the problems is found in
material exposed to direct observation. This is no different from what
happens in the physical sciences, although what is observed is different,
and the observation is conducted from a different, because personal and
social, standpoint.
At a certain period, for example, religionists and moralists were deeply
concerned about the nature and fate of human characters. They made
many shrewd and penetrating observations on human dispositions and acts
on ways of experiencing the world. Or, if this illustration does not ap-
peal, substitute modern novelists and dramatists. But aside from an earlier
tendency to interpret and classify such observations in terms of the ani-
mistic tradition, and later by a logical misconception of Aristotle's poten-
tialities (transformed into "faculties"), these observations did not form a
psychology. They do not become truly psychological until they can be
attacked by methods and materials drawn from objective sciences. Yet
apart from such observations, psychology has no subject-matter with which
to deal in any distinctive way in contrast to the physiologist and physicist,
on the one hand, and the social student, on the other.
JOHN DEWEY ' 419
The position here taken differs, then, in two important respects from
that of the introspectionist school. The latter assumes that something
called "consciousness" is an originally separate and directly given subject-
matter and that it is also the organ of its own immediate disclosure of
all its own secrets. If the term "experience" is used instead of con-
sciousness, it assumes that the latter, as it concerns the psychologist, is
open to direct inspection, provided the proper precautions are taken and
proper measures used. A philosopher by profession who does not know
much psychology knows the historic origin of these ideas in Descartes,
Locke, and their successors in dealing with epistemological problems. He
has even better ground than the professed psychologist for suspecting that
they are not indigenous to psychological subject-matter but have been
foisted upon psychology from without.
The special matter in point here, however, is not historical origin but
the doctrine that direct observation, under the title of introspection, can
provide principles of analysis, interpretation, and explanation, revealing
laws that bind the observed phenomena together. Without repeating
what was said at the outset to the effect that the structure of immediately
observed phenomena can be discovered only by going outside of the subject-
matter inspected, I refer to it here as indicating one difference between
the position here taken and that of the introspectionists. It is a dif-
ference between subject-matter that constitutes a problem and subject-
matter that is supposed to resolve the problem. To discriminate and rec-
ognize cases of audition, vision, perception, generally, merely exposes a
problem. No persistence in the method which yields them can throw any
scientific light upon them.
The other difference is even more fundamental. Psychologists of the
school in question have assumed that they are dealing with "experience"
instead of with a selected phase of it, here termed experiencing. I do
not, for example, see anything psychological at all in the determination
of all the least-discriminable qualities of "experience." The result may
yield something more or less curious and interesting about the world in
which we live; the conclusions may be of some use in aesthetics or in
morals for aught I know. But all that is strictly psychological in the en-
deavor consists in whatever it may incidentally teach about the act of
sensing and the act of discrimination. These are modes of experiencing
things or ways of behaving toward things, and as such have psychological
relevancy. It may be doubted whether more would have not been found
out if they had been approached directly as acts and not under the guise
of finding out all the qualities which can enter into experience. It is not,
in short, the qualities of things experienced but the qualities that dif-
ferentiate certain acts of the individual that concern the psychologist. They
concern him not as ultimates and as solutions but, as has been said, as
supplying him with data for investigation by objective methods.
The fallacy contained in the doctrine that psychology is concerned
with experience instead of with experiencing may be brought out by con-
sidering a style of vocabulary dear to the heart of the introspectionist.
420 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
I
When he speaks of sensation, he does not mean an act but a peculiar con-
tent.^ A color or a sound is to him a sensation; an orange, stone, oi
table is a percept. Now, from the point of view here taken, a color or
sound may be an object of an act termed sensing, and a tree or orange
may be an object of the act of perceiving, but they are not sensations or
perceptions, except by a figure of speech. The act of shooting is some-
times called fowling, because fowl are shot at. Speech even reverses the
figure of speech and speaks of the birds killed as forming so many good
shots. But, in the latter case, no one dreams of taking the figure literally,
ascribing to the dead birds the properties characterizing the shooting. To
call a tree a percept is merely a short way of saying a tree is perceived. It
tells us nothing about the tree but something about a new relation into
which the tree has entered. Instead of cancelling or submerging the tree,
it tells of an additive property now taken on by the tree, as much so as
if we had said the tree was watered by rain or fertilized.
I hope the aptness of the illustration to the matter of confusion of ex-
periencing with experience is reasonably clear. The tree, when it is per-
ceived, is experienced in one way; when remernbered, reflected upon, or
admired for its beauty, it is experienced in other ways. By a certain figure
of speech we may call it an experience, meaning that it is experienced, but
we cannot by any figure of speech call it an experiencing. Nevertheless,
the tree as experienced lends itself to a different type of analysis than that
which is appropriate to the tree as a botanical object. We can first discrim-
inate various ways of experiencing it, namely, perceptually, reflectively,
emotionally, practically — as a lumberman might look at it — and then we
can attempt to analyze scientifically the structure and mechanism of the
various acts involved. No other discipline does this. Some study must deal
with the problem. Whether the study is called psychology or by some other
name is of slight importance compared with that fact that the problem
needs scientific study by methods adapted to its solution.
The results of the analysis, if successful, undoubtedly tell us more
about the tree as an experienced object. We may be better able to dis-
tinguish a veridical tree from an illusory one when we know the con-
ditions of vision. We may be better able to appreciate its aesthetic qual-
ities when we know more about the conditions of an emotional attitude
towards it. These are consequences, however, of psychological knowledge
rather than a part of psychology. They give no ground for supposing that
psychology is a doctrine regarding experience in the sense of things ex-
perienced. They are on all fours with the use of the fact of personal
equations by an astronomer. The discovery and measurement of personal
equation in respect to the time assigned to a perceived event is a psycho-
logical matter, because it relates to a way of seeing happenings, but the
use of it by an astronomer to correct his time-reading is not a matter of
*I have alluded to Locke as a part author of the introspectionist tradition. He
always, however, refers to sensation as an act. Even his "idea" is an object of
mind in knowledge, not a state or constituent of mind taking the place of the
scholastic species as true object of knowing.
JOHN DEWEY 421
psychology. Much less does it make the star a psychological fact. It con-
cerns not the star but the way the star enters into experience as far as
that is connected with the behavior of an experiencing organism.
Returning to the question raised earlier — it now appears that, if the
acts of sensing, perceiving, loving, admiring, etc., are termed mental, it
is not because they are intrinsically psychic processes but because of some-
thing characteristic which they effect, something different from that pro-
duced by acts of locomotion or digestion. The question whether they do
have distinctive consequences is a question of fact, not of theory. An a
priori theoretical objection to such terms as conscious, mental, etc., should
not stand in the way of a fair examination of facts. No amount of care-
ful examination of the nervous system can decide the issue. It is possible
that the nervous system and its behavior are conditions of acts that have
such characteristic effects that we need a name to differentiate them from
the behavior of other things, even of the nervous system taken by itself.
The above is written schematically with omission of many important
points, as well as somewhat over-positively, in order to save time and
space. The account may be reviewed by reference to the historical back-
ground to which allusion has been made. Modern psychology developed
and formed its terminology — always a very important matter because of
the role of symbols in directing thought — under the influence of certain
discussions regarding the possibility and extent of knowledge. In this
particular context, acts were either ignored or were converted into
contents. That is, the function, the peculiar consequences of certain
acts, that renders them fit to be called mental was made into a peculiar
form of existence called mental or psychic. Then these contents were
inserted, under the influence of the theory of knowledge, as intermediaries
between the mind and things. Sensations, percepts, treated as mental
contents, intervened between the mind and objects and formed the means
of knowing the latter. Physics dealt with the things as they were in
themselves; psychology, with the things as they were experienced or
represented in mental states and processes. In this way, the doctrine arose
that psychology is the science of all experience qua experience ; a view later
modified, under the influence of physiological discovery, to the position
that it is the science of all experience as far as it is dependent upon the
nervous system.
The tendency was reinforced by another historical fact. The special
formulations of physics were made in disregard, as far as their own con-
tent was concerned, of qualities. Qualities ejected from physics found a
home in mind, or consciousness. There was supposed to be the authority of
physics for taking them to be mental and psychic in nature. The con-
vergence of these two historic streams created the intellectual background
of the beginnings of modern psychology and impregnated its terminology.
Behaviorism is a reaction against the confusion created by this mixture.
In its reaction it has, in some of its forms, failed to note that some be-
havior has distinctive qualities which, in virtue of the distinctive properties
of the consequences of these acts, are to be termed mental and conscious
422 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
Consequently, it took a study of the organic conditions of these acts to
constitute all there is to behavior, overlooking in the operation tw^o
fundamental considerations. One of these is that the distinctive functions
of the nervous system cannot be determined except in reference to directly
observable qualities of the acts of sensing, perceiving, remembering, imagin-
ing, etc., they serve. The other is precisely the fact that their behavior is
the behavior of organs of a larger macroscopic behavior and not at all
the whole of behavior. If it v\^ere not for knov^^ledge of behavior gained
by observation of something else than the nervous system, our knov^dedge
of the latter w^^ould consist merely of heaping up of details highly curious
and intricate but of no significance for any account of behavior.
Since this discussion intends to be for the most part a logical analysis,
I can hardly do better than close by citing a recent statement from a dis-
tinguished logician. Speaking of the reflective and analytic method of
philosophy, Mr. C. I. Lewis says: "If, for example, the extreme be-
haviorists in psychology deny the existence of consciousness on the ground
that analysis of the 'mental' must always eventually be in terms of bodily
behavior, then it is the business of philosophy to correct their error, be-
cause it consists simply in a fallacy of logical analysis. The analysis of any
immediately presented X must always interpret this X in terms of its
relations to other things — to Y and Z. Such end-terms of analysis — Y and
Z — will not in general be temporal or spatial constituents of X but may
be anything which bears a constant correlation with it In general
terms, if such analysis concludes by stating X is a certain kind of Y-Z
complex, hence X does not exist as a distinct 'reality,' the error consists in
-overlooking a general characteristic of logical analysis — that is does not
discover the 'substance' or cosmic constituents of the phenomenon whose
nature is analyzed but only the constant context of experience in which
it will be found" (3, p. 5).
REFERENCES
1. Hughes, P. In introduction to psychology: from the standpoint of life-career.
Bethlehem, Pa.: Lehigh Univ. Supply Bureau, 1928.
2. Hunter, W. S. Psychology and anthroponomy. Chap. 4 in Psychologies of
1925. Worcester, Mass.: Clark Univ. Press, 1926. Pp. 83-107.
3. Lewis, C. I. Mind and the world-order. New York: Scribner's, 1929. Pp. 446.
4. WooDWORTH, R. S. Dynamic psychology. Chap. 5 in Psychologies of 1925.
Worcester, Mass.: Clark Univ. Press, 1926. Pp. 111-126.
CHAPTER 23
THE INHERITANCE OF MENTAL TRAITS
Truman L. Kelley
Stanford University
We may believe that for some considerable time in the evolution of the
human species the existence of a problem of biological inheritance was
unsuspected by mankind. It seems quite certain that long before any
thought was given to the control of inheritance of mental traits, rules
were drawn up for the transmission of social distinctions and property
rights. There has thus become established the idea of the hereditary
transmission of the foibles and card houses of one generation to the neglects
of thought about the permanent and living protoplasm of succession.
A child might be expected to see a bottle floating down a stream,
claim it for his own, shunt it into a stagnant pool peacefully supporting
such things, and, having done so, to think of the stream in terms of its
flotsam and jetsam, but the adult who fails to see the stream as a living
thing, content or boisterous, confined or rampant, but moving ever onward
from an untraced source above to an unknown terminus below, is not
living in the world of continuity but of childhood or of make-believe.
It is presumably true that in the human lifetime more is picked up,
mastered, and incorporated into the daily and intimate structure of livmg
than is the case with any sub-human form of life. The foal is born
fully equipped for life except for a short period in which it receives
maternal milk and protection. The human child has a long period of
infancy and immature youth and picks up a language, a religion,^ a voca-
tion, likes and dislikes, a process — sometimes weird — for reaching con-
clusions, a more or less distorted awareness of sex, and a belief in the
transmission of acquired properties.
Now surely this richness of accretion is definitely human — it is one
important thing that differentiates man from animal and it is not to be
belittled. Of the various human values of social inheritance, one in
particular affecting genetic inheritance is so non-bestial as to be nearly
superhuman, though imdoubtedly it is but a rising human charactertistic.
The highest of our social arts, that is, of our somatic modifications, leads
ever more indubitably to a knowledge and mastery of our racial past, of
our genetic origins, and of our future possibilities. If that which is added
after birth leads to an understanding of the antecedents of birth and to
their consequences not only upon the present but also upon future genera-
tions, then it is an acquired trait having (or which may have) genetic
consequences. Its justification, its value, is thus rooted in a deeper
stratum of life than one affecting merely the social inheritance of man,
for we then have the genetic transmission of an acquired trait, or, more
[423]
424 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
exactly, modification of genetic transmission by an acquired trait. This
is a possibility, just as it is possible that the flotsam of the river can be
made to serve in the construction of plummets, seines, dams, etc., for the (
knowledge and control of the river itself.
What more complete and self-contained a social life can there be than
one in which the somatic structures of one generation are so full of i
wisdom (for it is the cerebrum, utilizing social heritage, not sex glands,
that mediate knowledge) that they determine the choice of the germ-cells
of the generation to be and see to it that that generation is germinally as
well as somatically in step with social evolution. We may make the
observation that the most consciously progressive of all mental traits,
inherited or acquired, is that one that aims to assure that the inherited
traits of the next generation shall be good from the racial standpoint.
Though the present chapter is entitled "The Inheritance of Mental
Traits," and not "Eugenics," the two subjects are indissoluble, for who i
desires to know the laws of mental heredity except because of the promise
of such knowledge for the improvement of the future, and who desires ;
to improve inheritance without being driven thereby to a study of the
laws of heredity? We may well then consider the importance of the
inheritance of mental traits from the standpoint of eugenics.
It is difficult to draw a line between social and biological inheritance
when dealing with mankind and with racial as distinct from individual
growth or evolution. Consider the five following hypothetical situations,
each involving changes from one generation to the next. In each instance
the first generation is composed of 50 per cent pure (homozygous) feeble-
minded and 50 per cent pure geniuses.
a) Omnipotent and benevolent education:
Mating at random and all unions are fertile. By social edict all children
not geniuses pursue a special training with the result that the entire second
generation react like geniuses, i. e., they are geniuses. They give appearance
of breeding true under the conditions of special training only.
b) Benevolent non-fertility:
Mating at random, but f. m. vs. f. m. and f. m. vs. g. unions prove non-
fertile under environmental conditions prevailing during period of the first
generation. Second generation is of geniuses and they breed true.
c) Benevolent social edict:
By social edict the geniuses alone breed, with the result that the second
generation is of geniuses and they breed true.
d) Social utilization of benevolent hormones:
Mating at random but by social edict preceding mating all f. m. act or are
so treated as to release hormones which react upon their germ-cells, making them
the same as those of the geniuses. The second generation is composed of
geniuses and they breed true.
e) Benevolent instincts and non-fertility:
No imposed restrictions upon marriage, but the original natures are such
that f. m. always choose f. m. mates and g. always choose g. mates. The f. m.
matings prove sterile. Second generation composed of geniuses and they breed
true.
In which of these five situations is there transmission of acquired char-
acters? In {a), (c), and (d) the intelligence of the body politic has
been instrumental in creating the genius second generation, because the
TRUMAN L. KELLEY 425
coordinated intelligence which has led to selective breeding or special
training is at least in part an acquired trait. The biological geneticist
would probably say that there was no transmission of an acquired trait in
situation (c), involving a benevolent social edict. However, the first
generation acquired something — that represented by the edict established
— dependent upon language, social contacts, cooperation, not possessed by
an earlier generation which radically modifies the germinal structure of
all subsequent generations. If this is not, in the profoundest of mean-
ings, a genetic modification due to an acquired trait, I am at a loss to
characterize it.
In this situation the race has acquired something (the belief that only
g. vs. g. matings should be consummated) that affects subsequent genera-
tions in the most fundamental manner conceivable. I shall hold, there-
fore, that the possibility of a racial transmission of acquired characteristics
exists and I am certain geneticists will subscribe to this, though if they
choose to say the same thing in other words I shall see no occasion to
object. The social scientists have no need to differ with biologists as
to what constitutes inheritance. Let each group attempt to understand
the other, but, of course, let each define his terms as best meets the needs
of his own problems.
Commonly the geneticist leaps from germ-cell of one generation to that
of the next (from gamete to gamete), concerning himself with the body
structure under standardized conditions of nurture (somatic phenomena)
only for the purpose of inferring germ-cell structure. In the words of
Babcock and Clausen: "Heredity is concerned with germinal materials
rather than with somatic characters; . . . heredity is genetic con-
tinuity of germinal material between parents and offspring" (1). The
problem of inheritance to the geneticist is that of inferring the germ-cell
structure of the offspring from the inferred germ-cell structure of the
parents, which is inferred from somatic phenomena. The growth of the
soma, due to nurture and to nature, and its limits are to him disconcerting
phenomena to be eliminated so far as possible by study of the experi-
mental animals under invariable conditions of nurture and at invariable
ages. On the other hand, the educator and psychologist are intrinsically
interested in the phenomena of growth and their relation to inherited
traits. The foci of interest are not the gametes of successive generations,
but the soma, including the relationship between the mature soma of
parent to the maturing soma of offspring.
There is a crudeness, or directness, in the study of inheritance by the
social scientist which eliminates a substantial amount of theory — that
which brings in germ-cell structure and its combinations. These are not
necessary parts of a study of inheritance. When it is remembered^ that
one's concept of the germ-cell as it concerns specific characters is an
inference from observable phenomena in parents and offspring, or progeni-
tors and descendants, it becomes clear that the observable phenomena
constitute the basic point of approach. Innumerable theories, elaborate
or primitive, may be called upon to explain the observed facts — the more
426 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
elaborate the richer in suggestion of issues to be investigated and tested,
and the more primitive the more certain that hypothesis will not
lead astray. If one supposes that inheritance of mentality is according
to a specific pattern based upon the latest knowledge of linkage of factors,
segregation, and independent assortment, then tests galore of the hypothesis
are suggested, in fact so many and so exacting that it is impossible to \
make them. If one merely supposes that there is biological inheritance
of mentality, then the proof called for requires the devising and the
utilizing of a test of mentality for a heterogeneous population of adults
and for their offspring, an allowance for nurture differences throughout,
and the securing of a measure of the net correlation remaining between
mentality of parent and that of offspring. Even in this case the test is
so fraught with difficulties that it has not been carried through in any
very satisfactory manner to date. Surely, until we can test this simplest
of hypotheses it is futile to attempt tests of much more complicated ones.
The geneticist differentiates his "characters" by color, presence or
absence, or some other qualitative spatial (i.e., body location) difference.
If upon close examination the difference is seen to be quantitative and
not qualitative, so that there is somatic overlapping of the groups supposed
to possess and not to possess some character, he chucks it aside as in-
appropriate for his study. He is entitled to do this, but where would
the student of mental inheritance be if he did the same? The mental
traits of the psychologist (i. e., characters of the geneticist) are not seen
or counted. Not only is the problem of somatic overlapping always
present but, far more serious, there is not a single mental trait as yet
positively known to be discrete from others in the sense that "eyeless"
and "spineless" are in Drosophila. The process of the geneticist in infer-
ring germinal structure of offspring from the germinal structure of parents
as inferred from direct observation of characters sensorially discrete is
hazardous enough. When such observation is impossible, so that the
existence and discreteness of the traits (characters) are themselves matters
of inference the task is futile, at least until this inference last mentioned
can be made with an assurance now entirely lacking.
The Mendelian geneticist will surely understand that this is not a
criticism of his work. It is merely a statement that there exists a field
of biological transmission, that of mental inheritance, which cannot now
be investigated by such of his methods as apply to much more elemental
structures than man. The physical chemist can today describe the in-
terior structure of the hydrogen atom with remarkable detail and he can
use this knowledge in prophesying the behavior of this atom. That he
cannot do the same with lead does not prevent him from ascertaining
many remarkable things that lead will do.
In a personal conversation with the writer a certain eminent biologist
advised the immediate junking of all biometrical studies of the inheritance
of mental traits and concentration upon studies of the Drosophila type
with a view, first, that the nature of the mechanism of inheritance be
ascertained, secondly, that mental characters in man be found following
TRUMAN L. KELLEY 427
this mechanism, and, thirdly, that then and only then could a practical
control of mental inheritance be considered a possibility.
Even were this procedure to promise success within a reasonable length
of time, which it does not, it would not seem desirable to the writer, but
rather both cumbersome and logically unsound. If careful and sufficient
observation of the relationship between offspring and ancestors enable a
serviceable description of offspring, knowing the traits of ancestors, then
a description of the mechanism whereby the offspring attain their traits
is a gratuity. It holds exactly the same place as any hypothesis in a
scientific study. The hypothesis must explain the facts, and not the
reverse. What we need first are facts of mental inheritance in man,
based upon careful and extensive observations.
It seems to the writer that the attempt to picture the inheritance of
feeble-mindedness — known by every careful tester of intelligence not to
be a single trait or sharply differentiated from normal intelligence — as
that of a unit recessive Mendelian character is an illustration of an
attempt to fit facts to a hypothesis. Even to test the hypothesis in this
case it would be necessary to have a criterion of "unitness" in the mental
field and none such is known to be available. Secondly, a criterion of
"recessiveness." This is not a necessary part of a modern Mendelian
concept of inheritance, and it is certainly a puzzling idea as regards
intelligence. The more tractable concept of allelomorphs is more funda-
mental in the neo-Mendelian picture. To my knowledge no criteria
for the determination of recessiveness, or of allelomorphs, in the mental
field has been proposed. Thirdly, a criterion of the specific Mendelian
mechanism active, for there are many widely different phenomena which
can fall under the neo-Mendelian scheme. Finally, there is implied a
knowledge of the genetic structure of the parents of the feeble-minded
and of the non-feeble-minded studied for comparative purposes. The
means of ascertaining this knowledge in controlled cultures has thus far
baffled geneticists — one needs but mention the skeleton in their closet,
the possibility that Drosophila melanogaster is a hybrid. The difficulty
of doing so in connection with the ancestors of the feeble-minded can well
be imagined. In fact, the problem has been made quite insoluble by tying
it up at this stage of our knowledge with a hypothesis as to the mechanism
of inheritance. There is neither need nor present benefit in doing so.
In no field of science does history reveal that observation waited upon
hypothesis. The typical procedure is observation, hypothesis, new^ ob-
servation to test hypothesis, new hypothesis, etc. At each step it is
essential that the hypothesis be adequate to explain the facts then avail-
able and that it immediately be subjected to rigid experimental or observa-
tional tests. The steps which seem to have been followed by those who
place mental inheritance, as known by present facts, under a specific Men-
delian pattern are as follows: {a) observation of facts suggestirig
mental inheritance; {b) postulating a mechanism in harmony with certain
known facts about peas, fowls, and fruit flies; (c) no testing of the hypo-
thesis upon mental data. The hypothesis did not grow out of the original
428 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
facts of mental inheritance, nor was it subjected to a penetrating examina-
tion involving the original data as well as new mental data collected
for the purpose. The method is open to criticism, and the conclusions
from it should not be considered scientific.
The conviction that the mental traits of oflFspring are more similar to
those of parents than to people in general is much better grounded than
that mental inheritance is according to a dominant-recessive pattern. A
hypothesis incorporating the first idea and not the second is to be preferred
at this stage of our knowledge. It is sufficient, for it is not so exacting
as to violate known facts nor does it impose limitations the reasonableness
of which is beyond our present means of testing.
When one considers the great variety possible under Mendelian in-
heritance it is not probable that a subsuming of facts now known about
mental traits and their inheritance, and of facts likely to be discovered
soon, under the Mendelian scheme, would offer any difficulty. The typical
scatter diagram showing the relationship between a mental trait in
parent and in child is such as to suggest blended inheritance, not alter-
native. Two, and perhaps more, Mendelian patterns can be invoked to
"explain" this situation: one is that the character is a strict blend of
single factors in the parents, plus a variability factor (such as is a grey
wing color in Drosophila) ; and the other is that several, perhaps a large
number, of factors combine to create, with an unmeasured variability
factor, the observed character. The differentiation between these two,
and perhaps more, hypotheses calls for a detail quite beyond us. The
point is that the failure to specify the particular genetic pattern operating
does not imply a disagreement with the versatile general Mendelian hypo-
thesis. In the matter of blends there is no ground for alarm (as many
would view it) lest the mental facts fall outside of Mendelian boundaries.
Should they in truth so fall, we would not expect it to be provable for
many generations, any more than we expect to be able to prove the
opposite.
In the matter of variability there is more occasion to think that the
Mendelian view is inadequate, but here it seems to be inadequate to
explain its own most ideal phenomena. Seemingly a prevalent view of
the geneticists today is that variability in culture accounts for a part only
of such variability in character of homozygous individuals as is found.
The remaining variability is admittedly an as yet unsolved riddle. The
psychologists can well refrain from drawing Mendelian analogies and
follow wherever the mental data alone lead.
The chromosome basis of germinal matter suggests 24 linkage groups
in man. As every chromosome is represented in every cell, including, of
course, nerve-cells, there is a genetic richness which makes such present
psjxhological discussions as that pertaining to Spearman's hypothesis of
a single general mental function fall into an entirely different class. In
mental life we have yet to clearly distinguish between a half dozen or so
mental traits. The genetic structure is so much more than ample for
our psychological needs that it does not restrict our thought a particle.
TRUMAN L. KELLEY 429
The following observation by Crew should be taken to heart by students
of mental inheritance: "In man, as has been stated, there are 24 pairs
of homologous chromosomes. If that which applies to Drosophila holds
also in the case of the human, and there is every reason to postulate that
it does, then in man there are 24 groups of linked characters and there
are infinitely greater opportunities for crossing-over between the chromo-
somes. It is not likely, therefore, that linkage (save sex-linkage) will be
quickly or readily recognized and it can be expected that man will
exhibit an exceedingly great variety in his characterisation. The map of
the chromosomes of man will not be made yet awhile, if ever." (3). At
present all that biology can do in this connection is to support the idea
that linkage groups exist. For data as to independent mental traits
(linkage groups?) one may be referred to Spearman's Abilities of Man,
(13), or the present writer's Crossroads in the Mind of Man: a Study
of Differentiate Mental Abilities (9). The linkage groups in Droso-
phila are four in number and of different "lengths," as measured. The
number of chromosomes is four and their directly observed lengths are
quite closely proportional to the "lengths" of the linkage groups. Thus
the chromosome as the origin of the linkage group is strongly indicated.
Thomas Hunt Morgan and others state that there is one important re-
quirement of the chromosome view: "It was obvious from the beginning,
however, that there was one essential requirement of the chromosome
view, namely, that all the factors carried by the same chromosome should
tend to remain together. Therefore, since the number of inheritable
characters may be large in comparison with the number of pairs of chromo-
somes, we should expect to find not only the independent behavior of pairs,
but also cases in which characters are linked together in groups in their
inheritance. Even in species where a limited number of Mendelian
units are known, we should still expect to find some of them in groups"
(11). Though there seems to be no conflict between the idea of linkage
and the dependence of certain mental functions, it would be unsound to
say that the study of differentiable mental abilities supports the linkage
theory, for genetic linkage is defined in terms of an entirely different
technique and different phenomena, both being impossible at present in
dealing with human mental phenomena.
Mendelian doctrine is neither in conflict with accumulated psycho-
logical data, nor does it shed new light upon the psychological issues.
At best only questionable analogies can be drawn. Psychologists should
reaffirm, if challenged, their independent status and vigorously pursue
the study of mental inheritance, taking their cues from the fascinating and
abundant facts of mental life. They should determine mental traits
unitary in a psychological sense and relate them to hereditary, environ-
mental, and age co-variants. It will then be time to interpret, if possible,
in the light of cytological evidence and controlled breeding experiments
made upon lower organisms. Whether this be possible is not of prime
importance, for the psychological study will yield its own adequate social
values. Galton has led the way in this endeavor and though the volume
430 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
of his conclusions as to heredity is small, such as it is, it stands unquestioned.
Galton's point of view, unattached to a specific mechanism of inheritance,
was nevertheless forward-looking and constructive.
What does the biologically trained geneticist know of mental measure-
ment, of independence in mental traits, of modifications due to differ-
ences in nurture, of changes with growth, and of racial mental differences?
Without profound knowledge of these things he is not equipped to
contribute to the problem of mental inheritance though his knowledge of
controlled genetic investigation be exceptional. The first demands of
this difficult problem are a thorough psychological, statistical, and measure-
ment background.
The logic of the philosopher and the vision of the seer proclaim the
problem worthy of untold effort and devotion. Thorndike discusses the
interdependence of nature and nurture and then states that the "most
fundamental question for human education asks that we assign separate
shares in the causation of human behavior to man's original nature on
the one hand, and his environmental or nurture on the other" (15, p. 3).
In connection with racial betterment he writes: "Until the last re-
movable impediment in man's own nature dies childless, human reason
will not rest" (16 p. 342). The immutable imminence of the issue has
been caught by Bergson, who writes : " [The occasional fleeting vision]
shows us each generation leaning over the generation that shall follow.
It allows us in a moment of insight to perceive that the living being is
above all a thoroughfare, and that the essence of life is in the movement
by which life is transmitted" (12).
The importance of knowing the parts heredity and environment play
in the life of a man and of his progeny can hardly be overstated, but
just what form this knowledge should take depends upon one's philosophy
or his mental mold into which he fits or tries to fit the facts of life. The
following statement is made by Thorndike: "Any man possesses at
the very start of his life . . . numerous well defined tendencies to
future behavior. Between the situations which he will meet and the
responses he will make to them, preformed bonds exist . . . What
a man is and does throughout life is a result of whatever constitution he
has at the start and of all the forces that act upon it before and after
birth." After pointing out the dependence of each factor upon the other
Thorndike states that the "most fundamental question for human educa-
tion asks that we assign separate shares in the causation of human be-
havior to man's original nature on the one hand and his environment or
nurture on the other. In this ... we neglect, or take for granted,
the cooperating action of one of the two ... in order to think more
successfully and conveniently of the action of the other" (15 pp. 1-3).
This suggests to me a picture, which may, or may not, be the same as
that of Thorndike, of the individual at some age sufficiently after birth
that nurture shall have played a part as follows:
Individual at age kA . . , , p.,
mdependent of nurture •^ ,j ...•"
TRUMAN L. KELLEY 431
wherein Xo is original nature at time of birth (or better at the union of
the germ-cells), ya . . .k, y^) . . .k, • - • Vk maturation factors of x„ first ap-
pearing at successive stages a, h . . .k. Now if environment affects these
factors by various amounts respectively Ca . . .h, ^6 . . . fc, • • • ^fc, the indi-
vidual at age k may be represented by
Affc = J:o + j'a . . . fc + ^ffl . . . fc + ^6 . . . fc + ^6 . . . fc + • • • + ^'fc + ^fc [2]
After a certain age, say age a, the traits of an individual become measur-
able, and if they were measured perfectly our measure of the individual
in some designated trait would be
j'b . . . & + ^6. . . fc + . • • + J'fc + ^fc [3]
which, if we are skilful enough could be divided into an original nature
component j's . . . a; + • • . + i'/c and a nurture component ^j, . . . fc + . . . + ^fc.
Whether I have given Thorndike's meaning or not, I do believe that a
concept substantially as here expressed in symbols has lain at the root of
most of the psychological and educational attempts to differentiate between
nature and nurture influences. We have sought to express the total ability
of the individual along a given line as equal to the sum of two parts, one
nature and one nurture.
Let us consider another symbolic statement, based upon the idea that
the individual at each and every moment is changing due to an inner urge
and an outer mold. We will designate his status at birth in some trait
by the symbol Xq. Then Xo + Ao is his status at the end of the next mo-
ment after Ao growth due to inner impulse has taken place. There can,
however, be no growth except as nurture (food, geography lessons, etc.)
permits it, so the Ap must be multiplied by a quantity eo which ordinarily
must be in the neighborhood of 1.00. Thus the status of the individual
at the end of the first moment is Xo + Ao^o, which we will designate Xa.
Similarly, at the end of the second moment we have
ATft = JTa + Ao^o r= j:o + Ao^o + Aa^o [4]
One should note that in this statement Xa (and a fortiori xi>) is not pure
original nature and that Aa is not pure original tendency to grow, but only
tendency to grow in the light of both hereditary and environmental
antecedents.
At age k the individual is represented by
Xk = Xj + AjCj =z Xi + Ai^i + Ajej =...=: Xo + Ao^o + . . . + Ay^j
[5]
From equation [5] we may express the ratio of status at age k to immedi-
ately preceding age ; thus:
Xk ^}
= 1 + .i [6]
Now clearly if this second statement is fairly adequate in showing how
Xk, the status of the individual at age k, comes about, there is no means
432 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
of differentiating between the sum of the environmental factors and the
original nature impetuses, for the final attainment is not the sum of
independent parts but the sum of products. Whereas in [2] the factors
contributory to the final outcome segregate readily, in [5] they do not.
Following the lead of [6] the important and perhaps solvable problem is
that of determining the parts played by past attainment on the one hand
and present environment on the other in bringing about an immediate
change. Theoretically this immediate change is that of a fraction of a sec-
ond. However, for functions in which the momentary environmental fac-
tor, e, differs but slightly from 1 (as in the case of height [see p. 437] ) a
much longer period than the "moment" can be used for the elementary
time interval — perhaps a year would be satisfactory.
Referring to [6], we see that if our measures were accurate it would be
relatively simple to differentiate between Aj/xj and Cj by a controlled ex-
periment involving different ej factors. This is of fundamental importance
to the teacher, and if [5] is correct it is a necessary step in the real solution
of the problem of inheritance. Equation [6] suggests that what we need
is a careful study of short-interval changes in capacity as related to changes
in environment and to differences in initial abilities.
The relationship covered by the equation, x-^ r:=. Xa "^ Aa^a, has to do
with some single mental function. Thus, if x^ is a person's musical ability
at age h, it is set equal to Xa-, his musical ability at a shortly preceding age
a, plus Aa^a, his tendency to grow in this short interval as affected by the
environmental influence of the interval. Fari passu the individual is de-
veloping in other respects. He is like an army having several units ad-
vancing upon a broad front, all fed from a common base, but meeting
different obstacles on their way. These various units have a sort of inde-
pendence of movement, particularly when all goes well, but an ever in-
creasing system of communication is built up as they progress, leading to a
dependence in functioning. Where it is possible to tap the resources of
neighboring units or to circumambulate serious obstacles a disentangle-
ment of the parts played, by the drive of the unit and by the difficulty to
be overcome, as progress takes place, is a problem of great complexity.
How much simpler the issue if but a single unit pushed across known and
unavoidable obstacles. The disentanglement of the parts played by the
drive of human nature and the aids and obstacles of nurture does, at best,
offer serious difKculties.
In the case of the advancing army it would be simpler to judge correctly
the credit to be given for progress made by each of two branches of the
service, such as air and infantry, than of two mutually dependent units
such as one infantry company and its neighboring company. Just so in
studying human nature it will be simpler to appraise properly the factors
conditioning progress in two quite discrete mental functions than in two
which are interdependent. For example, we may expect a differential
study of development of the nature and nurture factors in musical develop-
ment and of those in geometric ability to be possible while the child is
developing, whereas a study of the unique development of literary appre-
ciation and of written composition, each separately, might be quite impos-
sible because of the mutual dependence of the two.
TRUMAN L. KELLEY 433
It seems therefore that an important prerequisite to environment and
heredity studies that extend beyond single features is a determination of
what constitutes the most independent factors of mental life. These are
the things whose changes should be related to heritable and environmental
causes.
The approach mentioned, looking upon growth as a product of inner
urge and outer opportunity, is not the usual approach ; so when referring
to the extensive work already done I must revert to the summation picture
provided by equation [2].
No attempt will be made to review the literature upon this subject, but
merely to comment upon a few recent outstanding findings which have been
reported. Many of these are found in the 27th Yearbook of the National
Society for the Study of Education, Nature and Nurture, Parts I and II.
Thorndike (17) investigated the resemblance of siblings in intelligence,
allowed for differences in age, corrected for attenuation, and made a cer-
tain allowance for the fact that his pairs consisted only of siblings found
within a limited grade range, and reached a correlation value of .60. Upon
comparing this with .52, found by Pearson for the resemblance of siblings
in eye color, hair color, and cephalic index, he infers "that the influence
upon intelligence of such similarity in environment as is caused by being
siblings two to four years apart in age in an American family today is to
raise the correlation from .52 to .60." Let us interpret this in other terms.
If we express influences in an additive manner we may say that the vari-
ance ( =r the standard deviation squared) in intelligence of American
children of a certain age is equal to the variance due to {a) inheritance
(biological, not social) plus that due to {b) the environment likewise ex-
perienced by one's sib, plus that due to (c) other environment, plus that
due to {d) other causes (including chance), if any. If the total variance
is called one, the magnitude of the second factor (^) as drawn from Thorn-
dike's inference is .60^ — .52^, or .09. A 9-per-cent influence upon a total
outcome is very material. The sibs have the same parents and home and
some of the same playmates and teachers. They have different environ-
ments due to one being the older and the other the younger, one sometimes
a boy and the other a girl, some of their playmates different, and in part
different teachers. It may well be that this non-common environment is
more important in its effect upon intelligence than is the common environ-
ment. Estimating it as about the same we have about 20 per cent of the
total variance in intelligence due to environment and the rest to heredity,
chance, or what-not. This result is for ages in the neighborhood of 16.
Though a substantial environmental influence is found, I am inclined
to consider the 9 per cent an underestimate, because I think the influence
upon correlation of the selective nature of Thorndike's sample is greater
than he estimated, leading to a correlation of perhaps .70 between siblings
instead of .60. To make the issue clear consider the following:
Let X and y represent true scores of sibs, after due allowance for age, as
deviations from the mean of the sample investigated.
Let X and Y represent the same as deviations from the mean of the universe,
i.e., of an unselected population.
434 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
The correlation, as ordinarily determined, is
'■"" "" Na,ay ~ Na^. ~ N2ct% ~ 2Vx
In this statement a^ = <Ty, for the scatter diagram is a double-entry table,
the score for the younger sib being entered along one axis and for the older
along the other and then for the same pair entry is made in the reverse
manner. We define Vx by equation [8] and V (x-y) in a similar manner.
2 2
(Ta;(Ty = aa: =: ay =^ Vx (read the "variance of the jf's") ^= Vy [8]
If we deal with deviations of scores of the selected sample from the
mean of the unselected population, we can have a function similar in form
to that of rmy which will not be, according to definition, a product moment
coefficient of correlation, but which will nevertheless be a truer representa-
tion of the correlation in the unselected population because deviations are
taken from the mean of this unselected population. This is the function
Thorndike computes, leading to his value .60:
The value that we are searching for is that of an unselected population,
which I will represent by attaching primes, thus:
,,, = , . ^'<^-^> [10]
2V'X
Dr. Thorndike has used Txy as a fair measure of r'yx- Let us look into
this more closely. If, considering age, X is low (low intelligence for one
sib) then, as pointed out by Thorndike for the sample dealt with, there is
likelihood that Y will be lower than would be the case in the unselected
population. As the freedom of Y is partially limited, X-Y for low values
of X will tend to be smaller than in the unselected population. A similar
situation holds where X is high. Only in the middle range, where there
is no selection, -will the observed differences tend to be of the same size as
in the unselected population. Accordingly V(X-Y) is less than V'(X-Y).
If this were the only issue, we could immediately say that rxr is greater
than r'xY- Let us examine the denominator terms. Is VX, the variance
of the scores in the selected sample, equal to VX, the variance in the un-
selected population? Clearly VX can be greater or less than V'X depend-
ing upon the nature of the selection. For selection of the sort described
we are not at this point certain that rxr is smaller or larger than r'xY- The
problem cannot be solved without utilizing facts covering the specific
nature of the selection. Now Thorndike most happilj'- provides his detailed
scatter diagram. From a study of this I judge regressions to be linear and
the selection to be of the sort shown in Figure 1 : O is the mean of the
unselected population, T of the skewed sample, and u the estimated point
where there is least selection in the sample. Approximately sibs having a
TRUMAN L. KELLEY
435
score Xj, or Xj, will have their full complement of brothers and sisters
represented. Accordingly the regression of y upon x for the particular
value Xj w^ill be the true regression, i.e., y estimated from Xj in the selected
sample will give the same point as Y estimated from Xj in the unselected
population. We may now refer to Figure 2 where this principle has
been employed to obtain the regression lines, and accordingly the cor-
relation coefficient, for the unselected population. OA and OB are the
axes for the unselected population. 01 and OH, shown for comparison
only, are regression lines having the slope .60 corresponding to Thorndike's
value for rxr- GF and GE regression lines having the slope .40 corres-
ponding to an r-cj, of .40 estimated from the correlation of Thorndike's
Table 6 corrected for attenuation, j; is y estimated for Xj, but as men-
tioned this is also a point on O^^ the line giving the regression of Y upon
X in the unselected population. Therefore 00 is drawn so that it passes
through the point N. If we now measure the slope of OQ we obtain .70
as the correlation r'xT sought for.
o
z^^
z^
V
• — V 0
FIGURE 1
Portions of Unselected (Full Line) and Selected (Dash Line) Distributions
AS Estimated
If my estimate of a correlation in intelligence of .70 between siblings
in an unselected population of American sixteen-year-olds is near the mark,
and if Pearson's figure of .52 is correct for physical traits, and if the bio-
logical laws of inheritance are the same in the case of mental and physical
traits, then we find the variance of that part of the nurture factor that is
common to two siblings in the neighborhood of 16 years of age and about
two years apart in age to equal .22 — as given by .70- - .52-. Further, if
we estimate that one half of a child's milieu is similar to that of his sib and
one half different, then the rest of nurture is as important as the part
mentioned, so that 44 per cent of the total variance is due to the varia-
436
PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
bility in nurture and 56 per cent to the variability in inheritance, or other
(if any) cause.
It is pertinent to call attention here to Willoughby's (18, pp. 58-59)
determination, based upon mental tests of parents and children of average
age about 13, of the variance due to all environment, following R. A.
Fisher's coefficient of environment technique (4). The argument which
Fisher makes leading to his coefficient of environment, though circuitous,
has been very carefully thought out. It is true that there are in Willough-
by's mental-test data important hazards not present in Fisher's physical
data, but even so there is probably some significance in the results yielded
by Fisher's technique. Dr. Willoughby found the variance due to environ-
ment to equal .46. Unfortunately neither in the case of the 44 per cent
mentioned above nor of the 46 per cent derived by Willoughby do we
FIGURE 2
Regression Lines of Upper Right Quadrant of Scatter Diagram, as Estimated
TRUMAN L. KELLEY 437
have even approximate probable errors, not to mention systematic errors
which may be more serious. I would imagine them to be large in both
instances. The closeness of the two figures should be considered a coinci-
dence and not an experimentally established agreement.
In passing, it is interesting to note that Fisher, using Pearson and Lee's
data upon stature, span, and forearm, found no environmental influence.
He states: "An examination of the best available figures for human mea-
surements shows that there is little or no indication of non genetic causes"
(4, p. 433). He also finds that: "In general, the hypothesis of cumulative
Mendelian factors seems to fit the facts very accurately."
The interesting findings reported by Freeman and others (5) indicate a
rather high correlation between intelligence and environment, though I
would judge but little higher than that suggested by Thorndike's or Wil-
loughby's data. Their results are difficult to interpret in the variance terms
just used because raw coefficients of correlation rather than those corrected
for attenuation are reported and because allowance, when dealing with
correlations, for the selective nature of the sample dealt with has not been
attempted. Several of their results support the argument earlier made
that specific Mendelian mechanisms should not, at this stage of our knowl-
edge, be assumed. To quote one finding bearing upon this: "In the case
of 26 children studied, both parents were rated as feeble-minded. If in-
telligence were inherited according to the Mendelian law, all of these
children would be feeble-minded. It was found, however, that only four
had an I.Q. below 70 and these only slightly below. The average I.O. of
81 for these 26 children is higher than would be expected according to the
Mendelian law, but is considerably below that of the entire group of
children studied."
In addition to making a study of foster children Freeman^ and Hol-
zinger (6) have studied twins. For their purposes the twins were divided
into identical and fraternal types by Professor H. H. Newman, an author-
ity upon twinning. Various measures were available to Dr. Newman
and he considered all of them in making his division, but the exact record-
ing in print of the steps followed so that another could verify or repeat
his classification has not as yet been made. From the standpoint of further
research this is clearly of greater importance than any or all of the specific
findings reported upon the 102 pairs (50 classified as identical and 52 as
fraternal) studied. To build up a structure and draw important deduc-
tions, upon premises not subjected to the scrutiny of fellow-workers, is not
assuring. Perhaps time and publication opportunity have not as yet per-
mitted Dr. Newman's report to appear, in which case these remarks are
out of place as applying to the study under discussion, but they are not out
of place as applying to several identical twin studies which have long been
in print and not here discussed because of a failure to publish the exact
criteria used in the selection of subjects.
^Notes kindly supplied to the writer by Dr. Freeman upon an address delivered
by him before the American Association for the Advancement of Science,
December, 1929.
438 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
Upon the assumption that twins differ in the closeness of their inherited
similarity in a graded manner from most similar to the similarity of unlike
sibs and not in a sharply bimodal manner, which assumption is, so far as
we know, as congruent with the facts of mental life as any other, many
of the results reported by Freeman and Holzinger can be accounted for if,
when classification was made, (a) most reliance was placed upon number
of finger ridges, (b) some reliance was placed upon height, and (c) still
less upon cephalic index. This would account for the otherwise strange
figures reported by Dr. Freeman, following Holzinger's t^ technique (6,
pp. 246-247), indicating the nurture is about one-fourth responsible for
cephalic index and has practically nothing whatever to do with finger
ridges. It is obvious that if twins had been classified as identical provided
they had the same cephalic indices the t" technique would have indicated
nurture to be of zero importance in determining cephalic index and of much
importance in determining the number of finger ridges. Since it is not
cephalic index but number of finger ridges that appears solely (very nearly)
a matter of heredity, the inference is that number of finger ridges was the
trait considered of greatest importance and that accordingly this result is
a mere trick of the means employed in making the selection of the two
types of twins.
Though one holds a reservation as to the classification, it still is inter-
esting to look at the consequent results, for one may well believe that the
hereditary similarity of the twins classified as "identical" is much closer
than that of those classified as "fraternal." Dr. Holzinger has devised the
following formula:
variance of differences between f raternals caused by nature
t2 —
variance of differences between f raternals caused by nurture
ir — fv
[11]
1 - ir
in which ^r is the correlation between identical twins and fV that between
fraternal twins. Two important assumptions underlying this formula may
be mentioned : {a) that the identical twins as classified have identical inher-
itance and {b) that errors in the instruments of measurement may be con-
sidered negligible or in other words represented by the probable error of
t^. a formula for which is given by Holzinger. Assumption {a) has been
discussed. Let us here, with Holzinger, assume that it is valid and look
further. A formula not involving assumption {b) can readily be derived.
Using T^ in which the systematic effect of chance errors is allowed for in
place of t^ in which it is not, and representing the reliability coefficient of
the measure in question by rn, the formula is,
''-'' [12]
rii - ir
It seems to me that it is this latter formula that is demanded. I have not
attempted to determine the probable error of t^, but estimating reliability
coefficients for Holzinger's data as in column "rn" of Table 1 we get r^
TRUMAN L. KELLEY
439
values, as recorded, which for mental traits are very different from Hol-
zinger's t^ values. The t" values may be in considerable error due to
faulty values of reliability coefficients. Any vv^ho have carefully studied
the Stanford-Binet and the various Stanford Achievement tests will know
that the reliabilities estimated cannot be serious underestimations. We also
have the interesting ratio or, defined and given by [13],
^ variance of difference between fraternals caused by nature
total true variance of difference between fraternals
ir-fr
^11- f
[13]
The nurture, factor is, of course, 1 — a^.
TABLE I
Correlations between Twins (Corrected for Age) and Values of f from
HOLZINGER, AND RELIABILITY COEFFICIENTS (ESTIMATED) AND
Values of r and a" ey Kelley
Correlation
Iden-
Fra-
Variable
tical
ternal
^11
t^
r2
a2
Standing height
.93
.65
1.00
4.0
4.0
.80
Weight
.92
.63
1.00
3.6
3.6
.78
Head length
.91
.58
1.00
3.7
3.7
.79
Head breadth*
.89
.55
1.00
3.1
3.1
.76
Cephalic index*
.90
.58
1.00
3.2
3.2
.76
Total finger ridges
.97
.46
1.00
17.0
17.0
.94
Binet M.A.
.86
.60
.9
1.9
6.5
.87
Binet I.Q.
.88
.63
.9
2.0
12.5
.93
Word meaning
.86
.56
.9
2.1
7.5
.88
Arithmetic
.73
.69
.7
.2
imag.
imag.
Nature study-
.77
.65
.8
.5
4.0
.80
History and literature
.82
.67
.85
.8
5.0
.83
Spelling
.87
.73
.85
1.1
imag.
imag.
Educational age
.89
.70
.95
1.7
3.2
.76
*Correlation and f values
given
by Freeman
at A. A. A. S.,
1929, meeting.
An examination of Table 1 enables some interesting comparisons. That
variance in standing height is, under prevailing conditions, but .80 due to
nature, and cephalic index but .76 is, to say the least, surprising. These,
coupled with the high value for number of finger ridges, cannot but cast
doubt upon {a) the assumption of a sharp dichotomy in the types of twins,
or {b) the means employed in making the selection of the types, or (c)
both. According to the calculation, two of the t^ values are negative, that
is, they have no real meaning. If the reliability coefficients should in truth
be slightly larger than estimated, these r" values would become real but
large, and the corresponding a^ values would be slightly less than 1.00 and
not at all of the order yielded by the raw data. For example, for arith-
metic, using Holzinger's value of t~, which is .2, the corresponding value
for a? is .13, while the correct value reached by allowing for the unrelia-
440 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930 %
bility of the test must be in the neighborhood of 1.00. The value .13,
though perhaps in harmony with a view which attributed practically all
of arithmetic ability to nurture is not warranted by the data, for the test
is known to have a reliability much less than one. If we allow for un-
reliability and obtain a value of, say, .98, it is hardly consistent with or-
dinary experience, which would indicate that arithmetic is one of the most
"taught" subjects within the experience of the child, and therefore,
relative to, say, a Stanford-Binet or educational age, is more a matter of
nurture. The t'^ technique is indefensible upon logical grounds, and the
T" (or a^) technique gives results which are unreasonable, judged by com-
mon experience. We seem, therefore, forced to the conviction that the
basic assumption of a sharp dichotomy of the mental similarity of the two
groups of twins as selected is unwarranted.
Dr. Freeman has studied three pairs of twins classified as identical, the
members of the pairs having been reared apart since infancy. Of these
fascinating subjects two pairs showed very similar intelligence quotients
and the third pair indubitably different quotients. One such pair, if the
classification can be trusted, is sufficient to nullify a belief in the all-
sufficiency of nature.
It must be apparent to one examining such detailed studies of heredity
and environment in the human species as those of Burks (2, pp. 319-321),
Holzinger, Freeman, and others that a statement of the relative import-
ance of nature and nurture in the abstract is impossible, -when dealing with
mental traits, for, on the one hand, the more varied the environments
under which children grow up the greater relatively is the importance of
environment and, on the other hand, the more varied the genetic structure
of parents the more important relatively is heredity. Notwithstanding the
important study of May and Hartshorne (10) indicating that the evidence
for the heritability of "deceit" is equally strong as that for "intelligence,"
we must anticipate in harmony with the varying results in Holzinger's data
that further study will show that environment does ordinarily affect certain
traits, relative to inheritance, more than others. Furthermore a general
statement as to the relative importance of these two factors can hardly be
equally sound as descriptive of children at different ages. Table 2 may
fairly represent the situation and if so it largely reconciles the seeming
differences in the findings of Burks, Holzinger, Freeman, and others.
TABLE 2 (hypothetical)
Hereditary and Environmental Contributions to the Variance in Intelligence
OF a Homogenous Group Composed of White Children Attending •
THE Public Schools of America
Variance
due to
Variance
due to
Total
Age
differences in environment
differences
in heredity
vari-
Gross
Percentage
Gross
Percentage
ance
0
.00
0
1.00
100
1.00
4
.10
9
1.00
91
1.10
8
.20
17
1.00
83
1.20
12
.50
33
1.00
67
1.50
16
.80
44
1.00
56
1.80
Middle age
1.00
50
1.00
50
2.00
TRUMAN L. KELLEY 441
If it is persistently kept in mind that it is not environment, but only
differences in environment that are significant, it is not unreasonable to
think that the stimulus of dull parents to make a child say "mamma,"
"papa," "hunguy," "go-go," is quite on a par with that of bright parents
content vi^ith the same words and the same ideas. To do these simple
things at an early age constitutes intelligence as measured by our tests.
If one runs over the exercises of the Stanford-Binet, he can quite easily
classify the abilities called for into three classes: (a) those equally de-
manded by "poor" or "good" environments [sample : Tie a shoestring into
a bowknot as per sample shozuni ; (b) those ordinarily demanded by neither
[sample: Counting backwards~\ ; and (c) those more likely to be called for
by good environments than by poor [sample : What's the thing for you to
do if a playmate hits you zuithout meaning to do itf~\. The (c) type are
found late in the scale. Below average parents are fully possessed of {a)
type abilities and may, due to the lack of (c) type thoughts, actually con-
stitute a more potent stimulus for these abilities than superior parents.
The figures of Table 2 seem to the writer reasonable from a priori consid-
erations. They are in harmony with a principle early made use of by
Thorndike (14) that the longer nurture acts the greater its effects, which
principle has been used by the present writer (7) with seemingly very
reasonable results.
Let us see if they are in harmony with the findings of Burks, Freeman,
and others, Holzinger, Thorndike, and Willoughby. For a group of av-
erage age 8.2, Burks concludes that "home environment contributes about
17 per cent of the variance in I.Q." Table 2 has 17 recorded for total
environment at age 8. There is no great discrepancy here. For a group
of average age about 11.0, Freeman and others find an environmental con-
tribution which, if expressed in terms of variance (which the writer is
unable to do with any satisfactory precision) might amount to 50 per cent.
The table records 33. The "home" group of Freeman and others is pre-
sumably exceptionally heterogeneous in nurture for 8 1/2 per cent were
negroes, and the average Taussig scale difference between real fathers and
foster fathers is very large, being approximately two points. The Taussig
scale is as follows: 1, professional; 2, semi-professional and business; 3,
skilled labor; 4, semi-skilled; 5, labor. With so large an environmental
difference there is obviously more than usual opportunity for environment
to show its effect. Also, as suggested by Dr. Burks, there may have been
a tendency for the brighter parents to select brighter foster children. All
things considered, there is no clear discrepancy between the findings of
Freeman and others and the estimate of Table 2.
Dr. Willoughby 's subjects averaged about 13.0 years of age, so his
figure, 46, is somewhat higher than would be found for this age in Table 2.
Dr. Holzinger's data upon twins of mean age 13.4 would indicate, if
the classification into types could be trusted, a very small nurture variance,
in fact one smaller for mental traits than for physical traits. The appar-
ently small importance of nurture is out of harmony with Freeman and
Holzinger's earlier findings in the case of foster children and is not in
harmony with the figures of Table 2.
442 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
Dr. Thorndike's subjects averaged about 16 years of age, and the figure
which I have estimated from his data, 44, agrees with that of Table 2.
Table 2 is merely a deduction from such data as here discussed, but that
the results of such widely different investigations so nearly fit into a single
scheme suggests that the picture is a somewhat reasonable approximation
to the truth.
In conclusion I would enumerate the important steps called for, as I see
them, in the study of mental inheritance: first, a determination of psycho-
logically independent mental traits; secondly, a recasting of the picture of
nature and nurture in such terms that they are not looked upon as being
independently additive in producing a final outcome ; thirdly, a definition of
the problem in terms of somatic phenomena and so broadly as to permit
concomitant variations in heredity, environment, and maturity; fourthly, a
study of long-time development split up into short intervals, each yielding
its own important contribution ; fifthly, a definition of mental elements and
the facts of their relationship in their own terms not ignorant of, but inde-
pendent of, the elements and mechanisms of the student of primitive forms
of life. Finally, out of this should come a serious endeavor to alter present
and future generations in harmony with social advance and genetic
progress.
References
1. Babcock, E. B., & Clausen, R. E. Genetics in relation to agriculture. (2nd
ed.) New York: McGraw, Hill, 1927. Pp. 673.
2. Burks, B. S. Comments on the Chicago and Stanford studies of foster children.
27th Yrbk. Nat. Soc. Stud. Educ, Part I, 1928, 317-321.
3. Crew, F. A. E. Organic inheritance in man. Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd,
1927. Pp. 242.
4. Fisher, R. A. The correlation between relatives on the supposition of Mendel-
ian inheritance. Trans. Roy. Soc. Edinburgh, 1918, 52, 399-446.
5. Freeman, F. N., Holzinger, K. J., & Mitchell, B. C. The influence of
environment on the intelligence, school achievement, and conduct of foster
children. 27th Yrbk. Nat. Soc. Stud. Educ, Part I, 1928, 103-217.
6. Holzinger, K. J. The relative effect of nature and nurture influence on
twin differences. J. Educ. Psychol, 1929, 20, 241-248.
7. Kelley, T. L. The influence of nurture upon native differences. New York:
Macmillan, 1926. Pp. vii-f49.
8. . Interpretation of educational measurements. Yonkers, N. Y. :
World Book Co., 1927. Pp. xiii + 363.
Crossroads in the mind of man: a study of differentiable
mental abilities. Stanford University: Stanford Univ. Press, 1928. Pp.
vii-f238.
10. May, M. A., & Hartshorne, H. Sibling resemblance In deception. 27th
Yrbk. Nat. Soc. Stud. Educ, Part II, 1928, 161-178.
11. Morgan, T. H., Sturtevant, A. H., Muller, H. J., & Bridges, C. B. The
mechanism of Mendellan heredity. New York: Holt, 1915. Pp. xiii-1-262.
(Rev. Ed., 1922.)
12. Saleeby, C. W. Progress of eugenics. (Foreword by H. Bergson.) London:
Cassell, 1914. Pp. 259.
13. Spearman, C. The abilities of man: their nature and measurement. London,
New York: Macmillan, 1927. Pp. xxiiI-t-415.
TRUMAN L. KELLEY 443
14. Thorndike, E. L. Measurements of twins. J. Phil, Psychol., Sf Sci. Meth.,
1905, 2, 547-553.
15. , Educational psychology. Vol. I: The original nature of man.
New York: Teach. Coll., 1913. Pp. xi+277.
16. . Eugenics: with special reference to intellect and character.
In Eugenics: twelve university lectures. (Foreword by L. F. Barker.)
New York: Dodd, Mead, 1914. Pp. 319-442.
17. . The resemblance of siblings in intelligence. 27th Yrbk. Nat.
Soc. Stud. Educ, Part I, 1928, 41-53.
18. WiLLOUGHBY, R. R. Family similarities in mental-test abilities. 27th Yrbk.
Nat. Soc. Stud. Educ, Part I, 1928, 55-59.
CHAPTER 24
NORMALITY
C. Spearman
University of London
I. Nature of Norms
Few words are more common in psychology than "norms," "normal,"
and especially "abnormal." But not often are they submitted to the
scrutiny they deserve. For in them, or in other words more or less
synonymous, would appear to lie the key to many a psychological problem.
Consulting our good friend the dictionary, we find that a "norm" is
"a rule or an authoritative standard." Quite accordingly, the "normal"
is said to be that which "conforms to the standard or rule claimed to
prevail in nature"; whilst the "abnormal" is that which "deviates from
the natural structure, conditions, or course."
But after all what is the "natural structure, conditions, or course"?
And who set up an authoritative standard? What nature of standard?
And by what authority?
II. Abnormality and Anomaly
Such questions are not a little alarming. We seem in danger of slipping
overboard into the unfathomable seas of epistemology and metaphysics.
For does not everything that occurs belong to the natural structure, con-
ditions, or course? Does not the essential mission of science consist in
showing that nature always conforms to rules? But in that case any
deviation from structure or any non-conformity to rule is impossible.
The abnormal does not exist. There can at most be some illusion of it.
Still even in such an illusion, in the seeming abnormality — or, as it
has been more usually called, "anomaly" — there appears to lie one of the
most dangerous pitfalls for experimental psychologists. These are apt to
approach their researches with views already formed and fixed as to what
the structure and rules of nature really are, with the result that all
observations which deviate from such expectancies are consciously or sub-
consciously dismissed as erroneous.
There is another danger which is similar but more subtle. Here the
investigator does maintain a more or less open mind as to what shall be
the experimental result of his work, but he still has a strong bias in favor
of getting some result. Whatever seems to interfere with this consumma-
tion is apt to be welcomed coldly. At best it is statistically "smoothed"
away. This is indeed a ground upon which to tread delicately. To
smoothing must be thanked a large proportion of the greatest results in
science. Even an average — or, for that matter, a correlation coefficient
[444]
C. SPEARMAN 445
— is at bottom only an instance of it. And yet, on the other hand, what
grievous sins may not be laid at its door!
One warning at least may be ventured. In his seemingly anomalous
results the scientist is sometimes entertaining an angel unawares. The
deviation he finds from the normal course of the world which he knows
may really be the peeping-out of another and unknown world from behind
it. And so the researcher who keeps loyal to truth may come into great
good fortune. In astronomy, the failure of the observations of Uranus
to comply exactly with the known "structure of nature" led to enriching
this nature by the discovery of Neptune. Still more wonderful results
followed from noting that the observations of the bending of light failed
to follow exactly the rules laid down by the authority of Newton.
For the other side of the picture, where the anomaly was indeed noticed
but only to be dismissed as troublesome, we may look to psychology and
Hume. He wrote that if any person had become acquainted with all
shades of blue from the darkest to the lightest with the exception of one
particular shade, then he would undeniably be able to imagine this shade
also. But since such a result conspicuously failed to agree with the
structure of nature as depicted in his doctrine of associationism, he lightly
turned away, with the remark that: "The instance is so particular and
singular, that 'tis scarce worth our observing." In truth this form of
mental process, far from being "particular and singular" is now known to
pervade the whole universe of cognition; it is one of the three funda-
mental processes of "noegenesis" (1, 2,). By so dismissing what seemed
to be an anomaly, he unwittingly stayed the march of psychology for
nearly two hundred years.
III. The Unusual as Abnormal
Although the preceding kind of "norm" would appear to be that which
most simply and directly corresponds both with the historical derivation
of the word and with its present definition, yet it is by no means the
most common in actual linguistic practice. Much more frequently the
norm at issue does not consist in any definite "rule" claimed to prevail
in nature, but rather in that vaguely indicated complex of events that we
look on as the "usual run of things."
An outstanding instance is that of abnormalities in the structure of the
human body. Thus a perennial interest is taken in dwarfs; we marvel
at Philetus of Cos, who was so small that he kept weights in his pockets
to keep himself from being blowTi away. But no less of our curious
attention is devoted to giants, from old Og, the king of Bashan, to the
modern Chinaman, Chang. So, too, pennies are readily forthcoming at
a fair to peep at a Seurat, the "living skeleton" ; or at a Daniel Lambert,
who weighs some seven hundred pounds; or at a Trovilloo, who has a
large horn growing out of his forehead. As high show-prices could have
been demanded, no doubt, by men "whose heads do grow beneath their
shoulders."
On the mental side, however, the course of nature — or the imagination
446 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
of the chroniclers — has been less prolific of such wide departures from
what is usual. A large proportion of them has consisted only in appetite
for unusual foods and drinks, as for pebbles (Battalia), live coals (Rich-
ardson), knives (Cummings), and even corrosive sublimate (Soliman) —
or, on the contrary, in unusual abstinence, as the case of Miss Fleiger, who
is said to have lived entirely on the smell of flowers. Another large
section of cases have concerned the spending of money; most often, there
was an unusual aversion to so doing, as with Elwes and Dancer; or even
the reverse, as with the painter Morland. More cases than enough have
been recorded of unusual cruelty, such as that which the notorious Mrs.
Brownrigg meted out to her luckless apprentices. And sometimes a
person is so abnormal as to do brutal deeds upon himself; we hear of
self-castration, and even of self-crucifixion (Lovat).
An interesting point about these abnormalities of the body or of conduct
is the attitude wath which they are received by society. This has almost
always been one of dislike and contempt (though not to the extent of
preventing Buchinger, a dwarf without hands, feet, legs, or thighs, from
wooing and winning four wives!). And such hostility to the abnormal
person has been nearly independent of his or her real merits. Indeed,
if a man did only such a harmless thing as put his legs into his coat
sleeves and his arms into his trousers, he would be lucky if he got home
without being seriously molested.
Nor is the reason far to seek. The "usual" is closely allied to the
moral. Originally, the latter word simply meant what is usual. The
fact is that most of the disturbances between men terminate in these settling
down to some tolerable way of living together. The subsequent main-
tenance of such behavior is at bottom the observance of a treaty (none
the less so for being tacit). By accumulation and concatenation of such
peace-preserving use and wont, society becomes very sensitive to anything
novel. No one can predict how far the disturbances may eventually
spread ; the fall of one of a set of ninepins may entail that of all the
rest; a single person taking his bath before his habitual hour may upset
the day's work of the whole household.
IV. The Extreme as Abnormal
Closely akin to, but nevertheless distinguishable from, the preceding
case of unusualness is that of extremeness. The great distinction consists
in that the latter character is solely quantitative, whereas the former one
implies something qualitative also. In consequence, only the unusual
cases, not the merely extreme ones, form a definite group with its own
peculiar origin and its own special requirements.
Take, for instance, the children in a school who have the lowest "in-
telligence quotients." If these children are regarded as constituting an
unusual group, they are straightway taken to have something amiss with
them ; they are branded with the name of mentally defectives ; they belong
to the undesirables; they ought — by better breeding or otherwise — to have
been debarred from ever coming into existence; or, in a more optimistic
C. SPEARMAN 447
mood, they ought at least to have their endocrine glands examined. All
this is quite otherwise if our children are simply regarded as occupying
the extreme position at the bottom of the school. From such a viewpoint
there is no cause for worry. Some of the children must be at the bottom.
Little grounds are apparent for special breeding, and none for medical
treatment. Indeed, one would be at a loss to know where to begin, as
there is no manifest limit. We might take the bottom 1% or the 10%
or the 25%, and so on quite arbitrarily.
All that we have been saying about the children of very low standing
might be repeated about those who stand very high. If these represent
only extreme cases, there is not much more to say about them. But if
they constitute an unusual group, we break out into panegyrics on their
"genius," or, reversely, we misdoubt that — by way of compensation — they
must somehow be more or less unsound.
V. The Mysterious as Abnormal
Common as may be, in ordinary literature, however, the application of
the term "abnormal" to the unusual and even to the merely extreme,
something more is needed for a person or event to be admitted into
that section of psychology which is expressly designated as abnormal.
Especially helpful for gaining entry would appear to be some degree of
mysteriousness.
On this ground, probably, it is that every treatise on abnormal psychol-
ogy brings within its purview the topic of dreams. For these are cer-
tainly nothing unusual. Nor do they well come under any category of
extremeness. And we have not even any good ground for referring back
to our first section, where the abnormal meant that which escapes from
the reign of law. For whether we agree with the ancients who believed
that dreams foretell the future, or with the moderns who hold that they
mirror the past; whether we attribute them in greater degree to sensory
stimuli coming from without or to thoughts arising within; whether we
with Freud ascribe them to the urgings of sex, or with Adler to the
desire of power, or with Janet to fear, or with Stekel to hate, or with
many of the ancients to blind mechanism; by all accredited theories alike,
the course of dreaming is really no less subject to law than that of waking.
Indeed, perhaps even more so; if, as many believe, the dreaming life is
alone exempt from the influence of that sole lawbreaker, "free will."
But of mysteries, of bafflings to search after knowledge, on the other
hand, dreams are full to overflowing. For it is they that constitute the
great rock upon which has foundered the very science of knowledge; on
them has broken up the seeming bulwark of certitude, which consists in
the evidence of our own senses. Vaingloriously the "plain man" declares
that he will only "believe what he sees." And to no purpose does the
more cautious materialist pin his faith rather to that which he can touch.
Such confidence, already shaken by occasional illusions and hallucinations,
is quite destroyed by the regular visitation of dreams, wherein we see,
touch, and have all the other sensory perceptions of both things and
448 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
persons, and yet are irresistibly convinced by subsequent experience that
these very things and persons v^rere at the time elsewhere. That which
we perceive in ordinary life may or may not be really existent; but at
any rate the bare fact of perceiving them with our senses can no longer
be taken as sufficient proof. If not really, at least perceptually, "we are
such stuff as dreams are made on."
In even heightened measure, perhaps, the same may be said of hypnosis,
trances, somnambulism, and so forth. These, too, never fail to gain a
place in any account of abnormal psychology. And for them also, the
right of entry would seem to be largely due to their mysteriousness.
Once more we see and touch what really does not exist. And these ex-
periences are all the more wonderful because of their rarity, their strange
origin, the ethical and social disturbances to which they may give rise,
and above all, perhaps, the extraordinary mental powers with which their
subjects are apt to be credited, powers that can overjump space and time.
Penetrating deeper into this region of the mysterious-abnormal, we
arrive at the frankly "occult" or, as it has been more pompously entitled,
"parapsychology." Not yet for most critics beyond the bounds of scientific
credibility is the phenomenon of thought-reading with the aid of bodily
contact. Darker, but yet found believable by many, lies "telepathic"
communication. For those of still stronger faith, there is the sphere of
"telekinesis," wherein material objects can be moved without material
means, a well-known instance being "levitation." And even sturdier
believing powers are needed for acceptance of "materialization," which
consists in material objects being actually created by mental means.
Beyond this again lies finally the limitless domain of sheer superstition,
magic, witchcraft, demonology, and the rest of it.
VI. The Sexual as Abnormal
Not so easy to account for is the fact that a place in abnormal psychology
is often assigned to sexual life. What is there mysterious about this?
Surely, we need not be surprised that the male and female should experi-
ence— on occasion, at any rate — an ardent desire to consummate those
bodily acts by which fertilization is brought about; or even that in the
consummation they should find an intense pleasure. These are but very
natural and suitable incentives to do what is indispensable for the survival
of the race. And as much can even be said of the fact that this instinct
to bodily fertilization may be accompanied by the emotion of "love" — a
spiritual going-out of each mate to the other — which not only protects
both partners to the transaction, but at the same time confers alike on
giver and taker what is probably the greatest bliss in human experience.
Nor can the giving of the name abnormal to sexual life be explained
on the ground of these often lending themselves to disturbances, deform-
ities, and even monstrosities. For this would refer to it only in its
aberrations, not in its healthy course.
More to the point perhaps is the interesting inclination that exists to
"draw a veil" over sex life though at its healthiest; a tendency, however,
C. SPEARMAN 449
which displays large variations, even in civilized Europe — for instance,
from the rigor of the early Victorian middle classes to the license of the
modern bank-holiday excursionists. One might even speak of- a super-
normal and subnormal pudicity. But to settle where and why such
boundaries should be laid down belongs rather to the "normative dis-
ciplines" (see Section XV). '
VII. The Pathological as Abnormal
The preceding topic has led us to the confines of another one which
also plays a part, and perhaps the largest of all, in the psychological litera-
ture of the abnormal ; we arrive at mental pathology. So closely have
been linked these two concepts, of the abnormal and the pathological, that
often they are taken as synonymous.
What, then, constitutes a "pathological" state of mind? By what
criterion is it to be adjudged as such? Here is a question which has not
only been answered in widely different manners, but also has involved
points of great personal and even social importance.
Certainly, at any rate, no reliable criterion can be derived from the
state of the brain. For a large proportion of admittedly insane persons
have shown no perceptible brain lesion. Conversely, many have been
found to suffer from injury to the brain without appreciable insanity.
Compelled, then, to place our criterion in the mental processes them-
selves, shall we say that insanity consists in a general deficiency of reason-
ing power? Assuredly, no such statement will be made by anyone who
has had even a passing acquaintance with, say, a typical paranoiac. Nor
can anyone, instead, take insanity to lie in defective reasoning about some
particular subject. For on this showing, it is hard to see who would be
left to count as sane. Shall we, then, go beyond defects of reasoning and
say that the insane are those whose mental processes are weak all around?
Many cases are fitted this way well enough; all their mental activities
do become slower and less intense; they may even fall into a stupor
lasting for years. At least as often, however, insane persons seem to
display not less but rather more intense activities than sane ones, more
continuous and lively movements, more elaborate phantasies, more frequent
and violent emotions, more powerful instinctive urges, especially the two
primary ones of egoism and sex.
Naturally enough, then, this "norm" by which to judge insanity is
nowadays at any rate not taken to be established by any absolute char-
acters, but by relative ones; the insane person is not to be known by the
degree, nor even by the quality of his mental activities in themselves, but
rather by their failing to adapt themselves to his biological situations.
Here is ground enough for condemning his illusions and obsessions, ir-
relevant or incoherent discourses, defects of memory, needlessly distressing
emotions, unmotivated acts of violence both on other people and often on
himself. But even such a biological norm as this seems not too easy to
sustain throughout. For would it not depict as pathological all those
who are inclined to endanger their own lives, and would not this bring
450 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
into the ranks of the insane most of the military heroes throughout history !
Or, if we took a broader view, calling those sane who do good, if not
necessarily to themselves, at any rate to society as a whole, we might be
hard pressed not to count as lunatics many eminent statesmen, and even
theologians.
The problem is further complicated by the fact that for most practical
purposes the crux does not lie in settling whether a person is mentally
pathological or not; but whether he is too much so to be tolerated. And
hereupon the scene is at once invaded by a terrible swarm of politico-ethical
theorems; justice for all, liberty to the individual, the greatest good of
the greatest number; and of such, many more. But at this point the
psychologist diffidently cedes place to the majesty of law and the wisdom
of philosophy.
VIII. The Criminal as Abnormal
The remaining chief topic for which a section is generally reserved in
abnormal psychology is that which deals with criminals.
Here, evidently, is something closely akin to what we have just been
considering. For, as before, the persons are those whose behavior has
been found by others intolerable. But if so, then why should not these
two classes, in common fairness, be treated similarly?
And this indeed raises one of the greatest questions of the day. Hom
are criminals to be treated? Many enthusiastic criminologists urge thai
they ought no longer to be looked on as wicked, but only as mentally ill.
And this viewpoint, it is claimed, should abolish all punishment. Instead
of this barbarous custom of former ages, this gratifying of the savage lust
for revenge, as the would-be reformers regard it, we ought to substitute
the milder measures of mental medicine. One answer to such a claim
would be to make a general comparison between the denizens of the jail
and those of mental hospitals. For although no single formal definition
may serve as a norm to distinguish them adequately, and although certain
individual cases might equally well be assigned to either residence, yet
on the whole the two classes stand out distinctly enough. If any man
really could not tell which class he had got among, we might safely
prophesy to which of them he was heading!
Nevertheless, even granting that the two classes are, on the whole,
distinguishable, this fact by itself is no certain proof that criminals ought
to be punished. There still remains the much pleaded argument that
punishment does not make them any better. But surely no one ever
thought it did ! The aim of punishment from time immemorial has been
rather to deter others.
From this standpoint there appears to derive rather a new norm for
deciding whether criminals should be treated as such or not. Punish-
ment becomes useless in those cases which are too unlike the ordinary run
of events to act as a precedent for these. For instance, if a man were
to be pardoned after committing a murder during a fit of epilepsy, this
exoneration, under such exceptional conditions, would not do much to
C. SPEARMAN 451
encourage other persons to murder in ordinary circumstances. But if,
on the other hand, a murderer were to be let off on the ground that his
parents had not in his childhood analyzed out his complexes, such a judg-
ment might hearten would-be murderers in considerable number.
IX. Central Norms
In all the preceding sections the stress has been laid on "abnormality."
Such "norms" as do find mention have little interest save as means to
delimit the abnormal. And even this task they have performed in a
singularly ineffective manner. They have almost always been very in-
definite, and often they have been quite arbitrary. But now we come to
the conditions where almost all this is reversed. The "norm" itself is
of primary importance, whilst the term "abnormal" slides into desuetude.
Further, the norm does not, in general, consist in a limiting value, but
in a central one. And it is in itself, usually at any rate, perfectly definite.
Such a central value admits of being found for any group of cases —
any "population," as it has been called technically — in respect to any
character that has degrees, either quantitative or even qualitative. If the
characters can supply a unit — as is done by time, space, and frequency —
the usual central value is the arithmetical average. Thus, there might
be established the average reaction-time of the children in some school-
class — or again, the average error of localization made by a single person ;
here, the "cases" constituting the "population" are not individual people,
but individual acts of localizing. Examples of frequency furnishing units
are given by the average "span" of a person for counting dots seen tachis-
toscopically, or the average number of repetitions required for memorizing
a series of nonsense syllables. When the character measured presents
only quantity and no unit — as might happen, for instance, in estimations
of selfishness — then the average value of the character cannot possibly
be calculated. But this can be replaced by its median value, that is to
say, by the character of the central case. In the preceding example, the
children could be ranked in order of selfishness and then the central or
"median" child could be taken as the standard of normality. A further
device serving the same purpose is to pick out that degree of the character
which is possessed by the largest number of cases. Such a degree — some-
times called the "mode" of the frequency distribution — generally approxi-
mates the aforesaid central values. But not necessarily so; it can, upon
occasion, be one of the extreme values. For instance, if a mental test is
excessively difficult, the score made by the largest number of testees may
have the extreme value of zero.
Having somehow or other got your central value (or mode), what can
you do with it? Here lies the rub! Usually, this single value is made
to stand as representative of the whole population. Can it really perform
this function ? For some purposes, it certainly can ; but the trouble is
that many psychologists take it to serve other, and indeed all, purposes
For them the idea of the whole population is simply replaced by that of
some single central value. As an example may be quoted a document
452 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 19J0
recently circularized to several people asking for their opinion as to
whether the negro is or is not inferior to the white man. And behind
this circular lay evidently the gravest interests at stake; nothing less, it
would seem, than the whole political future of such countries as the
United States and South Africa. Now to begin with, we may well be
shocked at the equivocality of the term "inferior." Inferior in what?
Intelligence? Memory? Morality? Self-control? Waiving this point,
however, as foreign to our present topic, what are "the negro" and "the
white man" really intended to mean? The most natural way of inter-
preting them seems to be as men of average excellence in the negro and the
white populations, respectively. But then the question only ceases to be
obscure by becoming pointless. For, as every statistician knows, all
populations — if measured finely enough — have different averages.
Possibly, indeed, the circular might be interpreted in quite another way;
it might be taken to inquire whether every negro is inferior to every
white man. But to ask this would be stranger still. Such a case of
total superiority of one large population over another one is hardly to
be found anywhere; in the present racial question, to think of it would
be absurd.
Here as often elsewhere, then, the central value of a character is quite
insufficient for the purposes of science. Although it is undeniably the
most important of all single norms to be derived from a population, it
frequently stands in urgent need of further and subsidiary ones.
X. Lateral Norms
In order to supplement the central value of a population, it is natural
to seek out other values which lie to either side. And the general plan
is remarkably simple. Having found the central value which divides the
whole population into two halves, we apply the same procedure to each
half by itself; for each half we calculate the average (or the median).
But the chief interest of this value lies not so much in itself as in its
difference from the average of the whole population. Such a difference
affords a measure of what is called the "dispersion" or "scatter" of the
whole. To serve this purpose, however, a less obvious way is commonly
adopted. First, the distance is noted between the average value for the
whole population and the value for each single case in it; then each of
these distances is squared, and all the squares are added together; finally,
the total is divided by the number of cases. The result of all this is
entitled the "variance" and written as a^. The root of this, oritcr, is
often called the "standard deviation."
The preceding norms — those of central position and of dispersion —
carry us a long way in statistics. But they are far from being all that
is possible or even — for some problems — indispensable. Instead of only
three values, one in the center and one on either flank, there may be
required a long series of them at regular intervals. Let us take as
example the results obtained by Dr. Davey for some pictorial tests applied
to boys and girls. The frequency was counted of all the scores amount-
C. SPEARMAN
453
ing to 1 or 2, 3, or 4, 5 or 6, and so on, through the cases, but for each
sex separately. All these frequencies represented side by side constitute
for each sex a "frequency distribution." The actual results are given
in Figure 1.
D
jdzd
..
•»«•
1 \
\ 1
«
1
.-.-
•
1
h
FIGURE 1
Girls
■ Boys
Now, two such sets of norms as these really would supply at any rate
a preliminary basis on which to institute a scientific comparison between
the negro and the white man.
XL Samples and Probable Errors as Norms
But this brings us up to the fateful theme of "sampling." Every actual
investigation is necessarily limited to some definite number of cases ; these
may amount to, say, twenty, or a hundred, or, in rare instances, a
thousand. In our example there were 99 boys and 106 girls. But for
most scientific purposes we are obliged to generalize; the results gained,
if they are to be of any real service, must be taken to hold for cases
existing in other places and at other times. We are, therefore, reduced
to the device of regarding the cases which we do examine as constituting
a representative sample of the whole population which we have in view
ultimately. Though measured only in a sample of cases, the norms are
taken to hold for the whole population.
Now, for this transference to be valid, the cases in the sample must
at least satisfy two conditions : they must be selected sufficiently at random,
and they must be sufficiently numerous. Much the harder of these two
conditions is the first. For almost always the cases to which the in-
vestigator has access present some character peculiar to themselves, and
to this extent are by no means representative of the whole population.
Thus, in our preceding example, it would be folly to take the norms as
being those for boys and girls of any kind. It would be rash even to
assume that the cases of boys and those of girls are really comparable
with one another.
454 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
Severe enough, however, is even the second condition, namely, that
the cases should be sufficiently numerous. And almost vi^orse than simply
braving this danger is the not uncommon device of, ostrich-like, shutting
one's eyes to it. Thus many psychologists, when trying to show that
some two variables are intercorrelated, refrain from actually calculating
the correlation and its probable error on the ground that the number of ||
cases is too small ; they trust instead to their general impression. In truth,
such limiting one's self to a general impression does not remove the danger,
but only excludes it out of one's view. The correlation and the probable
error would not create, but only reveal, the inadequacy of the number
of cases.
This "probable error" is itself a norm which may produce the gravest
fallacies, even in the hands of some of the leading psychological statisti-
cians. Suppose, for example, x to be any value that is actually observed
whilst x' is the value to be expected from some theoretically conceived
situation. And suppose further that the probable error of x is just about
equal to the difference between x and x . What can we conclude as tc
whether the theory holds good or not? The said statisticians pronounce
the chances for and against the theory to be about equal.
Now, in truth, the probable error is that value which an observation
has equal chances of attaining or not attaining when the theory does hold
good. This fact teaches us next to nothing as to the chances of the
theory not holding good.
The whole affair is as if a bag contained originally 50 white balls and
50 black, to which were then added an unknown number of other balls
that might be either black or white. Suppose we now draw a white ball.
Is it not absurd to claim knowledge that the chances are even as to
whether this ball belonged to the original ones or to those added after-
wards? Obviously, all depends on how many balls were added and what
was the proportion of white to black in these.
But suppose, next, that the discrepancy of x and x was not equal to,
but three times as large as, the probable error. Such a value, statistics
teaches us, would be attained only about once in a hundred times when
the theory holds. We can then reflect that an event which occurs in so
small a proportion of times is unlikely to occur just when we happened
to make our observation ; the coincidence would be at least strange. We
conclude that the evidence is very adverse to the theory. From this
example it is easy to infer that a single observation can rarely, if ever,
prove a theoretical situation to exist, though it may easily bring strong
evidence against its existence. Theory achieves most of its triumphs, not
so much by direct proof, as rather by continued default of disproof.
But so far we have considered only the occurrence of a single observa-
tion at a time. Suppose that instead, as often happens, the observations
obtained at any time are very numerous. We may take a well-known
experiment which supplied six thousand observed "tetrad differences."
Shall we again say that, if the discrepancy of any of these from its
theoretical value is three times as large as its probable error, the evidence
C. SPEARMAN 455
about the theory is very adverse? On the contrary, over sixty (6000-r-
100) such discrepancies ought to be expected from the theoretical situation.
Indeed, a few discrepancies ought to be expected as much as five times
the probable error.
Matters may be much more complicated still. Instead of only one
specified theoretical situation, there may be several competing with each
other.
Seeing how difficult it really is to derive and employ norms, including
probable errors, with reasonable scientific certainty, one cannot but wonder
at the prevalent optimism on the matter. As, for instance, when the
behaviorist studies the emotional behavior of five or six babies, and from
the results thinks to establish norms of general human nature.
Far too often the investigator contents himself with the smallest and
therefore most inadequate sample possible, that is, one case only. Usually
himself ! Among the most pernicious instances is the tendency of every
psychologist to take his own experience as a general norm in respect to
"images." That this should have befallen Titchener, for example, seems
to have been calamitous for this whole psychological generation. And
the following is a suggestive personal anecdote of an even greater man.
He had been expressing himself warmly to the present writer on this
very point; the tendency of psychologists to judge all persons by them-
selves. Not ten minutes later, he himself charged Zola and others with
talking about olfactory images; the most careful introspection, he said,
has shown him that the sense of smell does not supply "images" at all!
XII. Undefined and Shifting Norms
We have just been considering the difficulties introduced into the use
of norms owing to the need of replacing the "populations" really in view
by mere samples of these. But there are further troubles which afflict
populations and samples alike. One of these derives from what is called
the "heterogeneity" of the cases included. That is to say, the individuals
differ in respect to age, or sex, or social status, or racial origin. By re-
ducing the number or degree of such variations, the problems become less
complicated, less subject to fallacies, and therefore more readily amen-
able to correct solution.
Often, however, the current attacks on heterogeneity go far beyond
this. They depict it as a sprite capable of any malignant trick, such as
conjuring up will-o'-the-wisp correlations where none really exists. Some
of these statisticians demand that heterogeneity should be eliminated al-
together. But this is impossible; for, in last resort, every two or more
individuals are more or less heterogeneous to one another. Others con-
tent themselves with only denouncing heterogeneity of a few particular
kinds, but give no definite ground for picking out just these rather than
others. And their choice seems to the present writer often blind and
arbitrary. If any heterogeneities are to be specially discredited, the
objections to them should be explicitly stated. And then it will frequently
be found that the very same heterogeneity which is fatal for one purpose
may be harmless for another, and, of course, vice versa.
456 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
Another great trouble derives from the difficulty in providing the
populations or samples vt^ith definite boundaries. Consider again our
example of scores at pictorial tests. Obviously, it would be absurd to
put forv^^ard these values as norms w^ithout any regard to vrhat ages we
had in view. For adults might have very different norms from children;
and again, the older of these from the younger. But it might be worse
than absurd — because more likely to mislead — if we were to take no heed
of what social classes we intended to include; a norm correct enough for
one class might be quite inapplicable to another.
We may note, too, that this last-mentioned evil of ill-defined boundaries
will not be removed by the measures taken against the preceding evil of
heterogeneity. Boundaries are not rendered sharper by being made to
include a less extensive and varied area. The range of age from 12 to
13 years is no better delimited than that from 6 to 16. If instead of
comprehending all the adults of a nation, the investigator limited himself,
say, to the professional classes, the boundary line would become not more
but less definite. And if he went on to restrict himself still further, as
to the theatrical profession, he might become still worse off. This diffi-
culty became very noticeable when the report of the testing of the Amer-
ican Army assigned to the theatrical profession the bottom place of all.
One wonders whether it was made to include the supers and call-boys!
The danger of indefiniteness with its consequent equivocality is aug-
mented by the fact that even if the population (as also any samples drawn
from it) is well defined at any one time, it may be rendered indefinite
by varying from one time to another. For example, the present writer,
when endeavoring to find some population capable of supplying norms,
thought about the totality of schools under the London County Council.
This totality was not only as large as could be desired, but also in itself
quite definite. But it could be utilized only by way of the results of the
annual scholarships. And the standard of these, unfortunately, appeared
to be far from stable.
In all such difficulty of procuring definite norms, there is one last
resource. It consists in renouncing the attempt to get a population de-
limited on any rational system, and adopting instead one which has only
an empirical and therefore more or less arbitrary basis, but which on the
other hand possesses some exceptional importance. An outstanding ex-
ample is the testing of the American Army. Here the results were not
in the least indefinite; they were simple facts; but they were obtained on
such a gigantic scale and under such interesting conditions, that they could
claim universal notice. Something of the sort may be said of the Stanford-
Binet scale, despite this having been derived from only about two thousand
cases. For subsequently the application of this scale — thanks, no doubt,
to Terman's wonderful skill in modifying the work of Binet — has spread
over most of the civilized world.
XIII. Pseudo-Norms
So far, we have been considering the difficulties that beset the establish-
C. SPEARMAN 457
ment of norms for a population of individuals in respect to a single
character. Let us now go on to norms for a population of characters
in respect to a single individual. The pre-eminent instance is the attempt
to derive from all the different abilities of any individual some single
norm indicating his "general level" of intelligence.
Now, an attempt of this kind encounters all the same difficulties as the
other kind. In particular, there is still the need that the population of
abilities should have definite limits. It is astounding to see how psychol-
ogists still go on complacently applying their tests of "general intelligence"
without ever settling what this is intended to comprise ; not even whether
or not it is to include most of the chief classes of mental operation, such
as memory, imagination, and sensory perception.
But this fault in their procedure, though not yet actually remedied,
might conceivably be so; the limits of such "general intelligence" might
possibly be laid down with tolerable definiteness by some international
conclave, whereas another and new difficulty now arises which would
appear to be essentially insuperable. Statistical "norms," as we have
seen, can be derived only from some population of comparable single
cases. Individual persons, reactions, repetitions, and so forth, do obviously
supply these, each person, reaction, or repetition constituting a separate
case. But abilities do not supply any such comparable cases. Thus some
psychologists might take "judgment" to constitute one case of ability and
"memory," ten; whilst others might reverse these numbers. Either pro-
cedure is just as arbitrary as the other.
Still, this impossibility of finding comparable single cases in ability as
we actually observe it does not preclude us from inventing such cases and
assuming them hy pathetically. Thus there is nothing to stop us from
assuming a single element in ability to be supplied by each cortical neuron.
And then conceivably we might be able to demonstrate that such elements,
did they exist, would produce results consistent with what we now actually
observe. But at least the hypothetical nature of these elements should
be openly admitted, and the demonstration should be explicitly formulated.
In default of doing either of these things, the alleged "general level" of
intelligence or ability is no real "norm" at all, but only a pseudo-norm.
XIV. Some Special Kinds of Norms
A few words may be appended on certain kinds of norms which are
rather special in their nature, but nevertheless have considerable interest
for psychology. One such is presented by a "limen" or "threshold."
Thus, a person's limen for discriminating tones may be set at 3 d, v.,
although actually he may sometimes have discriminated rightly between
tones differing by much less than this, and, conversely, he may often have
responded wrongly when the difference was much greater. For theoret-
ical purposes three distinct theoretical standpoints have been adopted.
One is to assume hypothetically that the person's discrimination power
is all the time constant in itself, but is more or less affected by accidental
disturbances. And these disturbances are then taken to be eliminated
458 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
adequately by the operation of averaging. The second standpoint again
leads to the procedure of averaging, but it discards the hypothesis; it
contents itself with calculating the average value of the person's responses,
and stops at that; it is behavioristic. The third standpoint is still less
rigorous. It does not bother itself to obtain even the average value of
the responses. Instead it takes as norm any more or less central value
that convenience or caprice may suggest; such as, for instance, 70%
right answers.
Another special kind of norm is that supplied by correlation coefficients.
If the cases in any population vary in any two respects — say, persons vary
in respect to two kinds of memory — then a large value for one of the
variables may go with either a large or small one of the other. The
coefficient measures the average tendency to congruence between the two.
Students sometimes, on finding this coefficient small, urge that neverthe-
less some individuals are large in both (or small in both), so that for
these individuals the correlation is high. Statistically, however, this view-
point is improper. The congruence of the two variables for any individual
is only coincidence, not correlation; the latter has no existence until the
whole population is considered.
Another kind of "norm," and one that engenders far more confusion,
is conveyed by the word "tj^pe." This plays a large part in current
individual psychology. We hear a great deal of "sensory type," "memory
type," "types of attention," and so forth, without end. Now, according
to the dictionary, a type is some fundamental structure characterizing a
whole group; as, for instance, the erect posture is typical of man. It is
widely different from an average, which may not belong to any member
of the group at all ; thus, the average number of wives for a group of men
would probably be a fraction of a wife. Psychologists, however, pay
little heed to this strict meaning of the word "type." They employ it
rather as a maid-of-all-work. Sometimes they take it to denote extreme
cases, which serve as reference points for the remainder; thus, a person is
said to be "typically" visual-minded, when vision with him completely
dominates all the other senses. At other times it is used to denote each
of the two peaks produced in a frequency distribution by mixing together
two very unlike classes, say, the motor dexterity of boys and girls. Most
often — and most misleadingly — it is, like "faculty," used to denote any
individual difference, but with an assumption that this difference con-
stitutes a unitary function ; thus, a person is said to belong to the con-
centrative "type" of attention, assuming that a person who can concentrate
on one sort of object can also concentrate on other sorts.
As a further instance of these special kinds of norms may be mentioned
the well-known "normal frequency distribution." From the geometrical
point of view, these are represented by the familiar bell-shaped figures.
As for their interpretation, this has been derived from at least four
quite different assumptions. But perhaps the most significant of these
is that whereby the observed values are taken to be sums of extremely
numerous independent elements, each of these elements having a very
small magnitude. The distribution of such values may be regarded
C. SPEARMAN 459
as a "normal" one because here, humanly speaking, all explanation comes
to an end ; the elements, owing to their minute size, elude all investiga-
tion ; we label them collectively as "chance." Conversely, the possibility
of explaining arises for such influences as are not so minute, but instead
are large enough to be individually appreciable ; that is to say, explanation
begins to be feasible where there are deviations from the normal distribu-
tions. Partly for this reason (however obscurely realized) ; and partly
also because such distributions, although never occurring exactly, do very
often with rough approximation ; and partly, again, because this kind of
distribution is peculiarly amenable to mathematical development; for such
reasons, the great majority of statistical formulae were originally based
on assuming this normal distribution, and in strictness are not valid for
any other. Recently, however, this gap has to a large extent been filled
up; many statistical formulae have been extended to a variety of fre-
quency distributions, and even to complete generality. This last has been
achieved, for instance — contrary to the statement of some statisticians
who should know better — in the proof of the main formulae of the theory
of "two factors."
To conclude this section, it may be mentioned that not infrequently the
term "normal" has been applied in a broader sense than any of those
indicated above. It has been taken to cover not only standards by which
observations are oriented but also those by which they are judged. In
this latter case, however, a more usual term is "criterion." Thus, in the
theory of "two factors," the zero value of the tetrad differences is com-
monly called a criterion rather than a norm.
XV. Normative Disciplines
Before closing this sketch, an allusion may be made to certain branches
of knowledge which, by their very essence, may lay down norms. There
is logic, which lays down truth, as the norm for thinking. There is
ethics, which expounds the good, as the norm for willing. And there is
aesthetics, which indicates the beautiful, as a norm for the fine arts. Indeed
such a normative character has often been taken to afford the boundary
line between the philosophic and the natural sciences. The latter simply
aim at describing phenomena. The former make rulings as to their worth.
Here in these normative sciences it is that norms and criteria become
especially hard to separate from one another. But usually the latter
may be distinguished by being more superficial. Thus a "criterion" of
beauty is furnished by any principle that anyone may choose in order to
appreciate the facts more effectively, whereas a "norm" of beauty controls
the objective facts themselves, and thus supplies content to what has to be
appreciated. However, here we must stop, on pain of transcending all
bounds of psychology.
REFERENCES
1. Spearman, C. The nature of "intelligence" and the principles of cognition.
London, New York: Macmillan, 1923. Pp. viii-F358.
2. . The abilities of man: their nature and measurement. London,
New York: Macmillan, 1927. Pp. xxiii-|-415.
CHAPTER 25
MOTIVATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY
Leonard T. Troland
Harvard University
I. Statement of the Problem
The term motivation has come into vogue to signify certain demon-
strable or supposed processes which determine conscious action, Narrow^ly
and popularly conceived, motivational psychology would be concerned pri-
marily with "motives," but broadly and scientifically considered, it deals
with all of the determinative functions and dynamics of mind (cf. 32).
Problems in motivation start us upon a quest for "explanations" as to why
individuals behave or desire in particular ways. Such explanations can
scarcely be complete and satisfactory unless they deal not only with funda-
mental forces but also with the specific structure of the action personality
which is involved. Thus, the study of motivation should lead to the form-
ulation of a system which is nearly as broad as the whole field of psychol-
ogy, although the details of this field will be viewed from a special stand-
point.
Although modern psychology comprises many divergent schools of
thought, the problems of motivation can be formulated in terms appropri-
ate to each of them. The popular and legal conceptions of a motive are
more harmonious with the standpoint of introspective psychology than they
are with the points of view of behaviorism or of psychoanalysis. How-
ever, it appears, paradoxically, that the newer and more radical movements
in psychology have concerned themselves more with motivational problems
than have the traditional schools. Indeed, this fact constitutes one of the
principal aspersions upon the latter. In the present discussion, I shall en-
deavor to formulate the motivational problem and some aspects of its solu-
tion in terms which are significant for each of the outstanding psychologies
of the day.
For common-sense thought, the search for a motive involves seeking the
causation of some act or aspect of behavior. It is in harmony with popular
ways of thinking that this motive should be conceived as a mental or con-
scious, rather than as a physiological, entity. However, if we adopt a
strictly behavioristic point of view, the motivational agencies must, of
course, fall in the latter category. We must state the entire problem and
its solution in "objective" terms. I have suggested (30, Chap. 3) that,
on this plane of investigation, we define the problem of motivation as that
of discovering the foundations of any given response specificity. By re-
sponse specificity is meant the exact relationship which exists between a
given stimulus and the motor reaction which it sets off. In terms first
[460]
LEONARD T. TROLAND 461
clearly presented by Holt (7, pp. 153-171), the reaction is a mathematical
function of the stimulus or of the external situation. Motivational analy-
sis from the behavioristic point of view must reveal the physiological mech-
anism and developmental origin of any given function of this gort. We
are, therefore, led to a study of neuromuscular mechanics and their sources
in heredity and in the influence of environment.
However, just as the behavioristic standpoint itself is blindly one-sided,
so a purely objective study of motivation must fail to deal with all of the
problems which are initially before us. Not only is it popularly supposed
that motives are conscious, but problems in motivation can be formulated
exclusively from the introspective angle, without any reference at all to
behavior. Introspectively, we have to deal with the phenomena of desire,
purpose, and emotion, together with other aspects of affective life, which
are intrinsically more interesting than any of their so-called overt expres-
sions. The motivational phenomena of consciousness, or of direct experi-
ence, comprise the life of desire or striving (16, Chaps. 9 and 11). Such
appetitional processes may be either positive or negative, directed towards
the attainment or the avoidance of certain so-called "ends." These "ends"
are particular forms of consciousness, towards which the other phases of
the experience move.
When we endeavor to give a systematic account or "explanation" of
appetitional experiences, we ordinarily find difficulty in locating adequate
causes for the observed effects. The experiences in question appear to be
causally fragmentary. For this reason, among others, the psychoanalytic
thinkers (21) have postulated the existence of a subconscious mental realm,
within which are to be found the fundamental motivating forces. The
Freudian theory of the libido (5) and of repressed complexes provides a
very intriguing explanation for many normal as well as abnormal mental
events. The extensions and modifications of the theory, introduced by
other psychoanalysts — such as Jung (9, 10, 11) and Adler (1) (and we
should probably include McDougall [18]) — make possible the presenta-
tion of a rather complete motivational doctrine in terms of subconscious
or unconscious agencies. In spite of their hypothetical character, views of
this sort cannot properly be neglected in any systematic treatment of moti-
vational problems.
Psychoanalytical explanations are, of course, not restricted to an exclu-
sively mental subject-matter, but can be applied also to facts of behavior.
However, in such applications, they involve a motivational psychophysiology,
wherein bodily expressions are accounted for in terms of subjective forces.
Neurologists customarily reverse this relationship, and explain the psychical
phenomena on the basis of organic conditions. Such ways of thinking lead
to the quest for a comprehensive psychophysiology of motivation, which will
unite the objective data with those of introspection and of psychoanalytic
theory, omitting none of the relevant and interesting ideas. In another
publication (30), I have endeavored to develop such an explanation as this
in considerable detail, and in the present article I shall confine myself pri-
marily to an outline of the views which I have thus previously advocated.
462 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
I may say, in condonation of this plan, that I consider the merits of my
system to consist almost exclusively in the manner in which it synthesizes
the teachings of most of my contemporaries and predecessors in this field.
II. The Mechanism of Response
General Principles. Since the clearest formulation of the motivational
problem can be made in terms of physiological concepts, it is most profitable
to approach the question from the behavioristic point of view.^ For the
behaviorist, psychological facts consist primarily in a relationship between
stimuli (or stimulus situations) and effector reactions. Given a certain
set of circumstances, S, a definite set of movements or postures, M, super-
venes. Each such association of <S-factors with M-factors constitutes a
specific response configuration. A man sees an enemy and flees; he meets
a friend and says, "Hello." From a strictly behavioristic standpoint, the
problem of motivation consists in systematizing and, perhaps, "explaining"
such response specificities.
The thoroughness of explanation which is demanded will determine the
nature of the required theorizing. A superficial analysis may involve
little more than a classification of responses according to types. Thus, we
may distinguish between simple reflexes, instincts, conditioned reflexes, vol-
untary action, and so forth. A more profound study, however, must lead to
a consideration of the neuromuscular mechanism through which the stim-
ulus situation controls the reaction. Since I feel that mere classification
and the formulation of response properties from a strictly external point of
view can hardly be regarded as explanation, I shall direct attention at the
outset to the neuromuscular apparatus.
Regarded from a physical standpoint, excluding all reference to con-
sciousness, response consists in a series of events, displaced successively in
space and in time, but bound together to form a propagation of influence.^
This series may be considered as beginning with an object, or a set of ob-
jects in the environment of the organism. The objects act, via the stimulus
(some special form of energy or force, such as light), upon the sense-organ,
where they excite definite receptor processes. The propagation continues,
along afferent nerve channels, through numerous nerve-centers, into the
efferent neural paths to find its way to the musculature. Here, various
postures or movements are determined and adjust the relation of the organ-
ism to its surroundings. It is evident that, if we are to explain any given
response specificity, we must present an intelligible account of the manner
in which the response propagation operates in the given instance. This
account must be expressed in strictly physiological or physical terms, with-
out inclusion of psychical concepts.
Fortunately, the present status of nerve physiology is such as to permit
a reasonably satisfactory formulation of the principles which must be in-
volved in the response process (2, 6). The receptors, such as the rods and
cones of the retina, offer sensitive surfaces which register the kind, inten-
I
*For a discussion of behaviorism, see (22).
"For a more detailed analysis of response along these lines, see (31, pp.
1S6-160).
LEONARD T. TROLAND 463
sity, and space-time pattern of various environmental energies. These
characteristics are represented intraneurally by variations in the forms of
the nerve-currents which pass along the afferent conductors. The physical
nature of the nerve-currents themselves, with their quantitative properties,
is quite well understood. At the nerve-centers, where afferent and efferent
conductors are brought into conjunction, specific afferent currents liberate
equally definite but configurationally different efferent disturbances. The
latter, in conjunction with the mechanical properties of the skeletomuscular
apparatus, determine the character of the reaction. It is therefore evi-
dent that the determinants of response specificity must reside in the nerve-
centers, since it is here that particular types of linkage between environ-
mental influence and motor expression are established.
Neural Conductance. Now, although the neuromuscular mechanism
has many peculiar properties of its own, its action follows the general
principles which apply to any propagational device. In electrical con-
ducting systems, the direction, the intensity, and even the quality of the
process depends upon the distribution of conductances: the flow follows the
line of "least resistance" or of greatest conductance. This line is deter-
mined, in the first instance, by the architecture of the conducting medium ;
in the nervous system, by the anatomical structure. Nerve-currents, like
electrical ones, are confined to the material paths of the conducting units.
There can be not the least doubt that many forms of response specificity
rest mainly upon such anatomical foundations. The types of response
which we call "reflex" are outstanding examples. However, even in the
case of the simplest reflexes, something more may be involved than a mere
conjunction of neurons. There must, at least, be a central mechanism of
discharge which governs the pattern of the motor reaction.
The gross architecture of the neuromuscular system is laid down almost
wholly by ontogenetic forces, so that the historical basis of reflex, and sim-
ilar response specificities must be adjudged as hereditary. The more complex
forms of response, however, appear to be determined in large measure by
the special life-history of the individual. Hence, they require particular
consideration of factors in addition to the crude anatomical juxtaposition
of neural elements. Juxtaposition is, of course, an indispensable prere-
quisite in any case, but, in responses of an advanced type, it seems to play
a general and not a specific determining role. The types of response which
interest us the most in human life appear to be mediated by that vast con-
junction field of afferent and efferent conductors which is known as the
cerebral cortex (27). In this field, almost any receptor can be connected,
in almost any way, with almost any effector. The gross anatomy of the
cortex provides us with practically no basis upon which to predict the
motor reaction from a knowledge of the stimulus. We are therefore com-
pelled to consider the part that may be played by conductances which are
represented in a manner more subtle than by anatomical structure. We
must be prepared, moreover, to find that such conductances are determined
by environmental forces rather than by hereditary factors.
Thinking along these lines, we note that, from the anatomical stand-
464 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
point, there appear to be numerous alternative paths of conduction leading
from any given afferent channel, through the cortex, to a wide variety of
efferent channels. Each of these paths involves a distinctive group of
synapses^ or neural contact points. The path of conduction which is act-
ually followed, in any given instance, must be that which presents the
highest synaptic conductance^ or the lowest synaptic resistance to the given
disturbances.
Now, it is evident that a thoroughgoing doctrine of motivation, from the
physiological standpoint, must deal with the conductional mechanisms of
both cortical and subcortical responses and must explain how those con-
ductance values which are not hereditary can be laid down by "experience."
In other words, we must establish a comprehensive reflexology, combined
with a theory of cortical learning.
Reflexes and Instincts. It would not be appropriate, in the present
brief survey, to enumerate the various reflexes which operate in the human
or other animal economies. These subcortical mechanisms are adequately
considered in textbooks of physiology (e.g., 25), and their underlying
principles have been handled in masterly fashion by such writers as Sher-
rington (24) and Fulton (6). Reflexes may be classified as circulatory,
respiratory, alimentary, excretory, reproductive, and so on. They are
characterized by a substantial independence of volition, and by uniformity
throughout the members of a given species. However, we should not fail
to realize that reflex processes are intimately associated with the more com-
plex forms of response. Cortical and subcortical adjustments frequently
occur in parallel, sometimes in alliance and sometimes in interference. The
reflex activities which are aroused by sexual and by algesic stimulation
sustain especially close relationships with cortically regulated activities.
The pain reflexes include those functions of the sympathetic sector of the
nervous system which have been so fruitfully studied by Cannon (3) and
his collaborators. They mediate a set of bodily adjustments which pre-
pare the organism for mortal combat.
Complex reflex reactions, like those which are associated with the sym-
pathetic system, shade over into so-called instincts (28). Viewed out of
relation to their conscious accompaniments, instincts partake of the nature
of reflexes in that they appear to have hereditary foundations which are
common to all members of a given species. However, in general, "in-
stincts" are conceived to possess a greater modifiability than are reflexes,
and seem to be capable of extensive elaboration through learning. Recent
investigations have shown that the "instincts" of fear and rage are quite
definitely reflex in character, in the sense that they have reliable subcorti-
cal mechanisms (3). From the physiological standpoint, fear is charac-
terized by the sympathetic reactions which we have considered above, while
rage adds to these a group of movements of the voluntary muscles, re-
leased through a definite hypothalamic nerve-center. The so-called sexual
instinct seems also to be composed in large measure of a constellation of
reproductive reflexes.
The concept of instinct has played a major role in modern discussions
I
LEONARD T. TROLAND 46S
of motivation. A wide variety of opinions have been expressed concerning
the existence and nature of instincts. Some writers, such as McDougall
(17), endeavor to ground the doctrine of motivation almost exclusively
in instincts, whereas other writers, like Kuo (12), deny the existence of
instincts altogether. One purpose which I have had in mind in formulat-
ing my own views concerning motivation has been to arrive at a resolution
of this uncertainty and conflict regarding instincts.
III. The Physiological Mechanism of Learning
Fundamental Laws. Aspects of response which involve primary re-
flexes alone can be explained in purely physiological terms, on the basis of
anatomical conduction mechanisms which have been laid down by hered-
ity. The pressing problems of motivation have to do with those develop-
ments which depend upon the life-history of the individual in relation to
his environment. In an endeavor to understand the neural mechanism of
such developments, we may have recourse to three general principles, all
of which can be stated in terms of neural conductance. These principles
are {a) the law of use (26, p. 244) — with its correlative, the law of
"disuse"; {b) Pavlov's law (20) ; and (c) the law of effect (26, p. 244).
Now, if we had to deal with an action system consisting exclusively of
alternative reflexes, we might hope to find some learning effects which
could be attributed to the law of use alone. The frequency of stimulation
of any particular reflex mechanism would be determined by the environ-
mental incidence of its peculiar stimuli, and such frequency might be re-
flected in an increase in the liability that the reflex in question would be
set off. Thus, the constellation of reflex conductances in one individual
might come to differ from that in another individual. However, an empir-
ical study of the facts does not confirm the notion that such a scheme of
differentiation is of much importance. Reflexes seem to be born well
exercised and to gain comparatively little in facility through use.
The first important appeal, in an attempt to understand learning, must
therefore be to Pavlov's law, or to the principle of conditioning. This
principle comprises an aspect of the old law of association by contiguity,
stated in physiological terms. It assumes a reflex and hereditary response
connection between S and M, and states that simultaneity of a second
stimulus, T, with this combination will establish an effective degree of
connection between T and M. This amounts to saying that the T-M con-
ductance is raised from substantially zero to some finite value by the given
temporal contiguity. We must suppose that the anatomical channels
which connect all afferent with all efferent paths are especially susceptible
to conductance increases along energized neural patterns. The afferent
paths for S and T are innervated by the environment, while the efferent
path for M is actuated by the hereditarily established S-M relationship.
However, it will be appreciated immediately that Pavlov's principle, by
itself, cannot lead to new forms of motor innervation. It can only estab-
lish new ways of setting off the innervations which are provided by hered-
ity. Since, in nearly all animal species, behavior is modifiable on the
466 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
motor, as well as on the sensory, side, we must appeal to an additional
principle. This appears in the so-called "law of effect," which has been
formulated and interpreted in many different ways. The law of effect
characteristically involves three postulates: {a) the existence of random
responses, (b) possible facilitation of such responses through the medium
of their environmental effects, and (c) possible inhibition on a similar
basis.
The postulate of random response assumes that the pressure of stimulus-
generated afferent nerve-currents can break through the central synapses
to yield non-reflex motor consequences which, unaided, would be strictly
ephemeral in nature.^ The synaptic locus of such connections must be
sought for in the cerebral cortex, with its multitudinous potential connec-
tions. The variety which characterizes these random activities must be
supposed to rest upon "accidental variations" that occur, from time to time,
in the relative conductances of these junctions.
The principle of use can undoubtedly play a part in rendering such con-
nections permanent, but is ordinarily inadequate to overcome the principle
of fluctuation. Furthermore, the establishment of given random responses
by use alone would be no guarantee of their biological utility. We must
therefore introduce a mechanism by which random responses can be rein-
forced or suppressed, as the case may be, on the basis of their environ-
mental effects. Observation of human and of animal behavior shows that
such a mechanism is provided by certain receptoral or afferent systems,
with their associated central processes. Thus, stimulation of the gusta-
tory-olfactory receptors with good food leads to the facilitation and
"stamping in" of concomitant random responses, while excitation of the
so-called "pain" nerve-endings of the body has an opposite effect.
Beneception and Nociception. It is comparatively easy to divide all of
the receptive systems into three classes,* as follows: {a) beneceptors, which
are tuned to stimuli indicative of a beneficial action of the environment up-
on the organism or species; {b) nociceptors, aroused characteristically by
stimuli that are associated with injurious conditions; and (c) neutrocep-
tors, having neither of these characteristic connections. The principal
neutroceptive systems are those of vision, audition, mechanical touch, and
kinaesthesis. Nearly all other receptor species possess definite beneceptive
or nociceptive relationships. However, it must be appreciated that the
functions of beneception and of nociception, respectively, are dependent not
only upon the anatomical identity of the given afferent channel, but upon
the intensity of stimulation and the state of adaptation of the latter. The
most potent beneceptive apparatus is undoubtedly that of erotic sensibility,
although those gustatory and olfactory paths which are aroused by good
food form a close second. The saccharoceptive system of the mouth is of
prime beneceptive importance. The afferent channels which respond to
^For a more detailed consideration of the neural mechanics of random response
see (30, pp. 173-176).
*I have discussed the classification of receptive systems, along these lines, in
(30, Chap. 12).
LEONARD T. TROLAND 467
moderate saltiness and to warmth are beneceptive, but their functions be-
come nociceptive at higher intensities of stimulation. The outstanding
nociceptive systems, hovrever, are those of "pain," of w^hich there are many
varieties. The afferent processes corresponding to unpleasant odors, and
to bitter and sour (in all except very low intensities) are also nociceptive,
as are the sensory mechanisms that are aroused by an empty stomach, a full
bladder, or a distended large intestine. Low intensity erotic excitation
may also be classed as nociceptive.
It should be noted that the grouping of receptive system as bene- and
nociceptive is logically independent of any correlated pleasantness or un-
pleasantness; the classification is based entirely upon objective biological
considerations. However, it is desirable to have a somewhat definite no-
tion as to the nature of the physiological processes which accompany bene-
ception and nociception, respectively. Observation upon the behavior of
men and animals shows that forms of specific response which are conco-
mitant with, or are closely followed by, beneceptive excitation may be fa-
cilitated at the time, and always show an increased tendency to recur
later. Those which come into similar relationships with nociceptive
processes suffer an opposite change. These observations can be translated
at once into the statement that beneception ordinarily conditions an in-
crease in the conductances of those cortically controlled specific responses
which are relatively concurrent with it, while nociception conditions a
reverse effect. Succinctly expressed, if we symbolize the degree of bene-
ception-nociception by i5 (a variable having positive and negative values)
and the cortical conductances under consideration by C^ then :
-^ = kB [1]
dt
where y^ is a constant. It follows from this formulation that the conduc-
tances increase in proportion to B when the latter is positive and that they
decrease in proportion to it when it is negative.
Retroflex Action. I have proposed the term retroflex action (30, pp.
215-216) to describe this process by which beneceptive or nociceptive stim-
ulation stamps in or out concurrent, or semi-concurrent, responses. It is,
of course, to be understood that, in the human being, such responses are
primarily cortical in their synaptic determination, and that the majority
of them are initiated through the mechanism of random activity, already
discussed above. However, the conditioning of reflexes, in accordance
with Pavlov's principle, may also be facilitated or discouraged in a retro-
flex way. Indeed, it seems doubtful whether reflex conditioning is ever
very effective without assistance of this kind.
Moreover, the facts in the case lead us to conclude that retroflex pro-
cesses themselves are subject to conditioning. This means that the cen-
tral mechanisms which increase or decrease the conductances may be set
off by secondary and non-hereditary stimuli. Thus, e.g., the inhibitory
action of "pain" can be transferred to a visual or to an auditory excitation,
such transfer being referable to a primary contiguity between pain and the
468 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930 ]
particular neutroceptive pattern which is involved. It is to be presumed
that the retroflex sense-channels are connected with special subcortical
nerve-centers which engineer the conductance changes that we are dis-
cussing. Evidence from anatomy and pathology indicates that the centers
in question are located in the thalamus. Conditioned or secondary retro-
flex action must involve an arousal of these thalamic mechanisms by virtue
of association, and through sensory channels different from those with
which they are congenitally connected.
It is evident that the primary (unconditional) retroflex mechanisms must
constitute one of the most important motivational systems to be found
within the organism. The various forms of retroflex action in any species
are hereditarily established, but can be elaborated through conditioning in
many different ways, according to "experience." Retroflexes, primary,
secondary, tertiary, and so on, mold the behavior system of the individual.
They form the hereditary basis of learning by experience, without which
such learning could not be guided with reference to biological needs.
The theory of retroflexes furnishes us with a basis for explaining many
forms of so-called instinctive behavior. As we have already noted, a great
deal of what passes for instinct can be classed physiologically as compli-
cated reflex action. However, instinctive behavior is usually conceived to
possess a degree of adaptive flexibility which surpasses the capabilities of
any simple reflex. Instinct consists not so much in doing the right thing
at the right time as in seeking experimentally for an indefinitely foreseen
goal, which is nevertheless definitely accepted when found. That this
aspect of unrest or of striving can be formulated satisfactorily in objec-
tive terms, has been shown by the work of Craig (4) and of Tolman (28).
It is possible to explain the process neurologically on the basis of nega-
tive, or nociceptive, retroflex action. This later process naturally oper-
ates so as to repress any concurrent form of cortically adjusted response,
but since the living organism is always responding, the suppressed behavior
must be replaced by something different. Consequently, there must be a
ceaseless variation of response, which continues until the nociceptive
stimulus is removed. As examples, we may consider the influence of
hunger or of pain upon behavior. It is obvious that the form of response
which accompanies the removal of the nociceptive stimulus will be inhibit-
ed, in the long run, less than other concurrent forms will be, and hence
that it will eventually become dominant over them. Positive, or bene-
ceptive retroflex action also plays a part in the development of so-called
instinctive response, but, instead of leading to unrest, it reinforces the ac-
tivities which initially make its excitation possible. In food-getting, the re-
moval of hunger excitation is accompanied by beneceptive taste and smell
processes, which reinforce the food-bringing responses. Erotic gratifica-
tion habituates the individual in those lines of conduct which yield maximal
erotic stimulation.
It should be evident that the potentialities of the retroflex scheme are
adequate to enable it to account for highly diverse individual action sys-
tems, such as we find among human beings. Explanations along these
LEONARD T. TROLAND 469
lines could be developed exclusively in physiological or behavioristic terms,
but it is in the interests of brevity, at this point, to introduce the psychical
side of the equation, so that we can present a balanced psychophysiological
account of the more advanced motivational processes.
IV. The Role of Affection in Motivation
General Psychological Principles. As w^e have seen in our introductory
discussion, motivational questions ordinarily involve psychical or conscious
factors, in addition to considerations of behavior. We have also noted
that motivational problems can sometimes be stated in subjective terms
alone. Clearness is attained by a separation of the physiological and the
psychological concepts, but it is neither appropriate to the problem nor
humanly expedient to neglect the latter.
When we consider the psychical side of the motivational equation, we find
that we have to deal with a group of so-called "subjective phenomena."
These constitute the facts of direct experience^ for any given individual,
and fall under such captions as "sensation," "perception," "affection," and
"volition." What the individual can observe or know directly about his
own motivation, apart from scientific speculation, comprises a set of facts
for us to study. These facts can be considered in and for themselves, by
purely introspective methods or, on the other hand, they can be studied in
relationship to physiological factors such as those which we have already
discussed above.
Numerous attempts have been made to construct comprehensive theo-
ries of motivation in purely psychical terms. The two most interesting
and successful theories of this type are the hedonistic and the psychoan-
alytic doctrines. These two kinds of hypotheses have much in common
with each other, but are distinguished by the fact that the psychical terms
of the psychoanalytic theory are largely additions to the data of direct ex-
perience, while the older hedonistic doctrines looked to experience, as given,
to reveal the sources of motivation.
The philosophical status of the hedonistic doctrine is somewhat para-
doxical. A considerable number of radical thinkers, such as Epicurus,
Bentham, and Mackaye (15), have advocated the doctrine in universal
terms and without reservation, and the majority of unsophisticated, com-
mon-sense individuals seem to be convinced practically of its truth. The
ends which we seek seem to be characterized generally by their pleasantness
or by relief from unpleasantness. Yet most psychologists and philoso-
phers, both ancient and modern, have shunned the hedonistic view as if it
were an infectious disease. Some modern psychologists (e.g. 19), even
express scepticism or disbelief in the very existence of pleasantness and
unpleasantness (affection), or assign to it a position of vanishing impor-
tance in the mental economy. After a protracted and careful study of this
situation, I cannot but feel that both sides of the argument have been in-
fluenced by passion and prejudice more than by the facts or by the logical
^For a detailed discussion of what is meant by "experience," see (31, Part I).
470 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
possibilities which are involved. The facts are entirely consistent with a
thoroughgoing hedonistic view, as I shall attempt to show.
First, however, we must establish certain general principles and con-
cepts having to do with the subjective realm. I shall use the term con-
sciousness to stand for a momentary cross-section of any individual experi-
ence. Such an experience consists of phenomenally given data alone,
exclusive of all inferences concerning the causes of the data. The facts of
psychophysiology indicate almost conclusively that the totality of any given
individual experience is determined in its nature and changes by physio-
logical variables located in a restricted portion of a corresponding cerebral
cortex. The most likely position for this area is in the frontal lobes,
where we may suppose the contemporary afferent nerve currents to con-
verge into a sort of focalizing activity which releases the related efferent
innervations. Direct psychophysical correlations or functions must there-
fore be established between consciousness and these cortical factors. Re-
lations between psychical variables and afferent or efferent processes are
of an indirect type, involving physiological intermediaries.
When we consider consciousness or experience in the light of motiva-
tional questions, we are concerned to know how the psychical system is
related to action or response. We wish to learn what particular features
of consciousness are involved in the determination of behavior. A com-
prehensive answer to this question must state that experience or conscious-
ness in its totality has "action significance." If experience as a whole is
correlated with the focal process in the cortex, then all parts of this
experience must be related to the response flux which is constantly passing
through the given cortical domain. There are undoubtedly many forms of
response — reflexes, instincts, and the like — which can occur independently
of such cortical factors, but there can be no portion of direct experience
which is irrelevant to the response which actually does operate through
the "region of determination of consciousness" in the cerebrum. Never-
theless, it may be possible to single out certain aspects of consciousness
which are more significant than are others with respect to changes in the
form of response. In the waking, or even in the sleeping, state, response
is constantly present; so-called "will" or "volition" is concerned, not with
the initiation of action in general, but with its change from one form to
another.
Psychical Nature of Affection. Now, consciousness consists of a con-
figuration of qualitatively different constituents. The configurations are
largely spatial, but they change in time, throughout the course of the given
experience. The qualitative constituents can be classified, and can even
be arranged into serial systems, showing dimensions of qualitative vari-
ation. Complex experiential configurations can also be treated in a simi-
lar manner and the various dimensions of such systems give rise to the
concept of an attribute. Some attributes are specific to restricted classes
of psychical constituents (e.g., saturation, as an attribute of color), whereas
other attributes may attach to total consciousnesses or experiences. Among
the latter is to be counted pleasantness-unpleasantness or affection.
LEONARD T. TROLAND 471
Many different views have been expressed regarding the psychological
nature of affection. According to my observation, it is a universal prop-
erty of consciousness in any form. It is not an "element," in the sense
that it can be regarded as divorceable from the context in which it is found,
but it is an irreducible attribute or dimension of the psychical system. In
this status, it manifests variations in algebraic degree between the polar
opposites of maximal pleasantness and maximal unpleasantness, with a zero
or indifference point somewhere between them. This linear dimension-
ality can be treated quantitatively by means of algebraic symbolism, so that
what we may call the affective intensity of any consciousness is represented
by a. When a is equal to zero, we have the indifferent condition ; when
.Its values are negative, there is a corresponding unpleasantness; whereas
positive values indicate the degree of pleasantness.
Since affective intensity, a, is regarded as an instantaneous property of
any consciousness, it can be plotted as a function of time, a = /(0> ^^id
this function can be integrated, in accordance with the equation,
A = Jadt [2]
between any two different instants, to and t^. A may be described as the
total amount of elapsed affection, and may be regarded as the technical
equivalent of what is commonly called happiness. It is clear that the
values of A may be positive, negative, or nil.
Psychological Theory of Affection. In order to develop an intelligible
account of the part played by affection in motivation, we must first estab-
lish a psychophysical theory of affection. Many different hypotheses have
been advanced to deal with the relationship in question, but I have found
that one of the following form is the most successful in handling the
facts (29). Let c stand for the average conductance value of the cortical
synapses which are operative at the instant, /, in the "region of deter-
mination of consciousness" which we have considered above. Then, we
hypothecate that
at = k—. [3]
dt
This equation implies that the affective intensity is algebraically propor-
tional to the rate of change of the cortical conductances in question, being
positive when and in proportion as the latter are increasing and being
negative when and in proportion as they are decreasing. If there is no
change in the conductance at the given instant, the affection will be
indifferent. , • u •
By a process of simple integration, we can determine a relationship
between A, for any interval ^o to tx and the cortical conductance at the
end of the interval in question. From equations [2] and [3],
A = la dt
rdc
= kl — dt
dt
■=z kc + ko
472 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
where ko is the "constant of integration." In other words, the total
integrated amount of affection in the given time interval is proportional
to the "net change" (algebraically expressed, as in the usual stock-
market terminology) in conductance during the same interval.
It should be clear at once that this h5T)othesis regarding the psycho-
physiology of affection establishes a paramount significance for the latter
in the theory of motivation, for the determination of response specificity.
Conductance values, such as Cj are symbols for the probability that the
corresponding concatenation between afferent and efferent patterns will
be operative under appropriate stimulus conditions. In so far as the
pattern of response is regulated via the focal region in the cortex, which
is directly related to consciousness, the affective history will determine
the form of response which becomes dominant.
V. Conditions and Consequences of Affective Experience
Peripheral Conditions for Affection. It is clear that if the hypothesis
which we have developed above is a complete representation of the cortical
conditions for affective experience, we can derive its more peripheral con-
ditions by ascertaining* the relations between peripheral factors and
changes in the cortical conductances. The more important of these rela-
tionships have already been indicated in our discussion of the laws of use,
conditioning, and of effect. By combining the various postulates which we
have already laid down, we can reach the following conclusions: (a)
Other things equal, the upbuilding of specific responses, through use,
should be accompanied by pleasantness, and their lapse, through disuse,
by unpleasantness, (b) Repetition of any given form of response will
yield diminishing returns of pleasantness, as the cortical conductances ap-
proach an asymptotic limit, (c) Stimulation of beneceptors will result
in pleasantness, and of nociceptors, in unpleasantness, (d) Conditioned
retroflex action will be accompanied by positive or negative affection, ac-
cording to the identity of the conditioned processes. (e) Conflicts or
interferences between competing response tendencies will be unpleasantly
represented in consciousness, whereas alliances will have pleasant con-
comitants.
The above conclusions provide us with a general basis for explaining
nearly all types of affective experience in terms of their afferent conditions.
Conclusions (a) and (b) apply particularly to the pleasures of novelty
and to the displeasures of monotony. Conclusion (c) accounts for
nearly all purely sensory pleasures and displeasures. Conclusion (d)
covers affections of the associative type, including those attached to "sen-
timents" and "complexes." Conclusion (e) deals with the affective ac-
companiments of the complex interactions between primary, secondary,
and more advanced response developments.
Action Consequences of Affection. Of even greater interest for our
present theme, however, are conclusions which emphasize efferent rather
than afferent factors. It is clear that, while affective intensity, a, merely
indicates the direction in which response tendencies are being altered at
a given instant, integrated affection, Aj summarizes the actual changes
LEONARD T. TROLAND 473
which have been established during a given time interval. We must not
forget, of course, that this significance of A is confined to those types of
response which have had conscious representation during the interval in
question. Alterations in the properties of subcortical pathways, or in
cortical pathways which lie outside of the synergic focus which deter-
mines consciousness, will not be directly represented. However, we have
reason to believe that, in the human being, such sub-focal alterations are
of minor importance. In so far as we are dealing with "voluntary"
behavior, we evidently have to do with responses operating through the
cortical focus. Thinking along these lines, we can see that the types
of behavior which bring pleasure will be "stamped in," while those which
bring unpleasantness will be "stamped out," in proportion to the inte-
grated affections which attach respectively to them, throughout their
histories.
It should be noted how this doctrine embodies the teachings of more
primitive hedonistic theories, and at the same time accommodates itself
to the actual difficulties which these theories have encountered. Earlier
hedonisms have laid emphasis either upon anticipated (future) or present
happiness, as the determinant of action ; the present theory puts the whole
burden of determination upon past affection. The instantaneous present
affectivity is merely an index of an effect which is being integrated in
time. The choice of alternatives cannot be predicted accurately, on the
basis of anticipated or presently experienced affectivity, although these
factors will establish significant probabilities. The direction of anticipa-
tion is controlled by past experience, while the latter is the record of a
continuous succession of one-time "nows." But, in many special cases,
the affective integral throughout the past may be entirely opposed to
present and to anticipated events. The environment situation is all-
important in determining the actual state of affairs in any given instance.
Hence, quite frequently, a man's past pleasures may induce him to make
actually unpleasant and prospectively unfruitful decisions, in the present;
without violation of a hedonistic doctrine of the type which we are here
advocating. This kind of explanation applies as well to Joan of Arc as
to Edgar Allan Poe. It should be noted, moreover, that a "hedonism of
the past," such as ours, places the motivational determinants where they
causally belong. Effects should be temporarily subsequent to their con-
ditions, and "final causes" have no proper place in a scientific theory,
although we can explain them as final effects in terms of our hypotheses.
VI. Developments and Applications of the Theory
General Considerations. The concepts and principles which have been
established above provide us with a means for dealing effectively with the
majority of contemporary teachings regarding motivation. Fortunately,
most of these propositions fit into or become corollaries of the doctrine
which we are advocating, rather than inviting rejection as contradictory
to it. The teachings in question have to do mainly with {a) the part
played by reflexes in behavior, {b) the processes of learning, (c) the
nature and operation of instincts, {d) the nature and operation of senti-
474 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
ments and complexes, (e) the nature of emotion and its relation to
instincts and complexes, and (/) the structure of human personality.
Our discussion, thus far, indicates a rather sharp division between
responses occurring through a focal region in the cerebral cortex and
other types of response which are largely subcortical in their determina-
tion. In the human being the latter are mainly of a reflex character,
and do not involve learning.^ However, it should not be inferred
that the higher and lower types of response ordinarily go on without
interaction. The fact is that, from a biological point of view, the
cortical and subcortical responses usually form a well-integrated system.
A partial basis for such integration may be found in the fact that a
single afferent process can simultaneously evoke reflex and cortical
activities. Thus, cold may produce "goose flesh" accompanied by elab-
orate protective reactions; certain odors excite salivation simultaneously
with voluntary movements directed towards food-getting. As a rule,
the reflex and the cortically controlled responses are mutually helpful,
although this is not always the case. A further aspect of such alliance
between higher and lower processes appears in the fact that each retro-
flex mechanism has an associated set of reflex expressions. Thus, pain
excitations bring about innervation of the sympathetic nervous system,
at the same time that they inhibit concurrent cortical responses. Further-
more, when conditioned retroflexes are established, the corresponding
conditioned reflexes are also likely to be formed. This means that, at a
later time, the conditioning stimulus will set off the appropriate reflex
reactions while facilitating or inhibiting the cortical activities, as the
case may be. For example, erotic fixation upon a particular person of
the opposite sex may cause the later perception of this person to arouse
sexual reflexes while at the same time facilitating concurrent cortical
conduction.
Considerations of this sort lead us to pictures of response activity which
seem adequate to explain most of the so-called phenomena of "instinct."
These phenomena involve a complicated integration of reflex processes
with cortically mediated and reflexly governed behavior. More or less
appropriate reflexes are set off through subcortical channels, while cortical
adjustments contribute the more elaborate responses which are required
for success in the given situation. Although the reflex factors are essen-
tially unmodifiable, the total mechanism possesses a high degree of flexibil-
ity; the reflexes and retroflexes can be conditioned and reconditioned,
while the corresponding cortical adjustments can be molded under the
dictates of the retroflex processes, ad libitum. Such changes constitute
learning in accordance with the laws of Pavlov and of effect.
Instincts and Emotions. The majority of psychologists have treated emo-
tion as an essentially subjective phenomenon and have endeavored to identify
its physiological correlates. James (8, pp. 442-485) considered that the
substance of an emotion consists of the organic sensations which follow
"In certain lower animals, such as the rat, there is undoubtedly less differentia-
tion in kind between cortically and (say) thalamically controlled responses (14).
LEONARD T. TROLAND 475
from reflex, instinctive, or otner impulsive action. Lange (13) looked
for the physiological basis of the emotional experience in vasomotor
changes, while McDougall (16, p. 324) has established a very significant
correlation between lists of emotions and of instincts. This same general
plan of attack can be pursued consistently with the views which are
expressed in the present article, if we associate particular emotions with
specific types of retroflex process. Thus, fear is evidently closely related
to pain processes, while love is correlated with reproductive retroflexes.
Now, a detailed study of bene- and nociceptive channels, together with
the retroflex activities which we have assumed to be associated with them,
shows that there are a sufiicient number of such channels to account for
the major species of emotion. However, it is a fact of common experi-
ence that emotions exist in almost infinite variety, and such variations
must be accounted for in terms of different kinds and patterns of retroflex
conditioning. The majority of writers on emotion have endeavored to
identify some characteristic simple content of the emotional consciousness.
It has seemed to me, however, to be preferable to treat the emotions as
complicated experiences (30, Chap. 19). An emotion, in other words,
cannot be characterized satisfactorily in terms of any instantaneous psy-
chical structure, but must be regarded as following a typical course in
time. It starts with sensation or perception, develops impulse, feeling,
and kinaesthesis, and ends in satisfaction or disappointment. Various
temporal phases of such emotional sequences can be distinguished rather
clearly, and are sometimes regarded as being complete emotions. Such is
the case, for example, with joy, despair, and sorrow. We can hardly
hope that a scientific definition of emotion will correspond in all instances
to popular usage.
Although emotions, regarded as psychical phenomena, are intrinsically
complicated, their physiological conditions may be capable of sirnple
formulation. Thus, it has seemed to me satisfactory to say that emotions
are concurrent with retroflex excitations for which the organisrn is not
adequately prepared. This means that emotions accompany initial, or
relatively initial, processes by which useful reactions are learned under the
influence of bene- or nociceptive stimulation, or of corresponding condi-
tioned retroflex excitations. When the appropriate responses have been
established, there will still be pleasantness and unpleasantness, but the
intricate emotional experience will have given way to simpler and more
direct action experiences. In the case of nociceptive excitations, suc-
cessful learning will tend to protect the organism against further similar
stimuli. In the case of beneceptive processes, there will be immediate
recourse to adjustments which conserve these processes and bring them to
a maximum. It is evident that such an interpretation demands that
emotional experiences should be strongly affective and, also, that they
should be characteristically kinaesthetic.
Cannon (3, Chap. 19) has recently advocated the view that the
essential physiological condition of emotional experience consists in partici-
pation by thalamic processes, rather than by general or specific proprio-
ceptive activities, as implied by James. Perhaps I may be pardoned for
476 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
pointing out that this aspect of the emotional process is definitely incor-
porated in a detailed treatment of the subject which I had previously
given (30, esp. Section 119). The evidence upon which I based my
opinions in this connection appears to be essentially the same as that cited
by Cannon, and it is noteworthy that we have arrived independently at the
same conclusions.
Unfortunately, the scope of the present article will not permit us to
discuss the properties of specific emotions, but I have dealt with some of
these elsewhere.
Complexes and Sentiments. In early childhood, primarily stimulation
of the retroflex mechanisms through beneceptive or nociceptive channels
furnishes the principal basis of learning by experience. In adult life,
however, the molding of behavior is largely under the control of condi-
tioned retroflex processes. Each established conditioning of a retroflex
comprises a control mechanism for further learning, as well as the psy-
chophysiological basis of a specific affective sensibility. It is therefore
evident that particular retroflex conditionings correspond closely with what
the psychoanalysts call "complexes," or with what McDougall and
Shand (23) call "sentiments." Sentiments and complexes are ordinarily
conceived in psychical terms, and are frequently assumed to reside in a
hypothetical subconscious realm. However, they are always character-
ized by a semi-permanent association between an originally neutral stimulus
pattern and an affective or emotional process. Thus the philatelist has
a stamp-possession complex or sentiment, while another man may experi-
ence extreme displeasure in society. Neither of them was born in this
condition, but their particular interests or aversions are constantly regulat-
ing their behavior and leading to the formation of new subsidiary habits.
The retroflex explanation of sentiments and complexes differs from
that of most of the psychoanalysts in that it provides a wide variety of
affective foundations. We are not restricted to eroticism or to the ego,
but can base our explanations upon any primary beneceptive or noci-
ceptive mechanism. In order to differentiate between a sentiment and
a complex, I have suggested (30, pp. 370-371) that the former
term be limited to associative groupings which involve only one unitary
retroflex system; complexes may then be defined as complex sentiments,
or conditioned retroflex assemblies embracing more than one fundamental
affective process. Many such complex constellations are to be found in
the constitution of human personality. Undoubtedly the most important
of them is the so-called ego complex, which may involve all of the retro-
flex mechanisms in one integrated system.
Purpose and Desire. The concept of purpose would appear to be a
very important one in the theory of motivation, but it has been a stum-
bling-block for most philosophical and psychological thinkers. The doc-
trine of retroflexes, like psychoanalytic doctrines in general, provides a
very ready way of dealing with purposes. From the purely introspective
angle, any purpose can be identified with an image which represents the
desideratum or "end" of a given line of action. The desiderative aspect
of the accompanying experience may be identified with its affective trend.
LEONARD T. TROLAND 477
and the latter is closely correlated with the fortunes of the purpose which
is involved, li the purpose is being fulfilled or realized perceptually,
the affective intensity progresses from algebraically lower to algebraically
higher values. ^ However, if the fortunes of the purpose are opposite to
this, the affective progression takes the opposite direction.
These subjective phenomena can be explained psychophysically, if we
suppose that purposes are correlated with specific retroflexes. Typically,
the latter will be conditioned rather than primary, since the concept of
purpose ordinarily implies a definite configuration and not a simple
sensory quality. Primary retroflexes may be regarded as underlying
relatively undifferentiated desires, which give rise to more and more com-
plicated purposes through "experience." It should be clear that our
general theory makes retroflexes, of any kind, regulators of action and
molders of character; and purposes stand in a similar relationship to the
facts on the psychical side of the equation. Purposes are not "ends,"
but beginnings.
The Structures of Action Personalities. It should be evident that the
theory above outlined allows for the development of a wide variety of
response systems, the natures of which will be determined by the stimulus
environment of the given individuals. Since no two organisms will have
the same stimulus environment, the action systems which are devel-
oped under the guidance of identical retroflex mechanisms must be
different. However, although the general retroflex endowment of all
individuals of the same species is presumably the same, quantitative varia-
tions are to be expected. Some individuals are more "strongly sexed"
than are others, meaning that their erotic retroflexes are more powerful,
and such variations must have an important bearing upon the systems
of response which they develop. On the other hand, it is to be supposed
that individuals of the same species, when placed in a generally similar
environment, will be led to generally similar forms of response ; and these
forms will cluster about the more important retroflex schemes, such as
those of alimentation, reproduction, and self-protection. Generic sys-
tems of behavior, thus determined, take on the aspect of instincts, be-
cause {a) they have evident biological functions, {b) they are com-
paratively constant throughout a given species, and (c) they are closely
bound up with particular reflexes or groups of reflexes. As a matter of
fact, however, if our theory is correct, they are largely products of learning.
A radically different environment would produce unrecognizably different
results.
The limits of the present article will not permit a study of the various
typical complexes and affective-action systems which characterize con-
temporary human beings. I have dealt elsewhere (30, Chaps. 22 and
23) with what I consider to be the essential features of the "ego com-
plex" and of the erotic sentiments which seem to be the doniinant factors
in human personality. The mechanisms of sexual motivation are rela-
tively simple in comparison with those of the ego. As we have noted,
the latter appears to incorporate all of the retroflex-affective units m a
478 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
complicated mosaic, comprising what the individual has learned con-
cerning the types of response which are necessary for his own preservation.
Although the ego complex is frequently in conflict with erotic tendencies,
it nevertheless incorporates sexual factors. Many other minor and sub-
sidiary complexes can also be adequately treated in terms of the retroflex
theory.
It should be pointed out that this theory not only leads us to expect
the formation of a comparatively rigid set of habits in the individual
but also a constant remodelling of these habits to meet changing environ-
mental conditions. Retroflexes, either primary or conditioned, are always
operating to steer the organism along lines of conduct which are biolo-
gically useful. It should be noted, furthermore, that the concept of
response intrinsically involves a specific stimulus in all cases, so that the
mere ingraining of a habit does not necessarily guarantee its repetition.
The appropriate stimulus must first be given. Hence elaborate and
profound systems of response may lapse entirely when the environmental
situation is radically altered.
VII. Conclusion
It is a corollary of the complete psychophysical theory of motivation
which I have advocated in the present article that all action tendencies
which are established through the medium of integrated cortical conduc-
tion should be functions of corresponding affective histories. The strength
of any such action tendency will, in fact, be proportional to the time
integral of the affective intensities which have been correlated with the
given form of response during the total life-history of the individual.
It follows that the choice of alternative lines of conduct in the face of
a given stimulus will be determined by the greatest past affection, which
is proportional (according to our hypothesis) to the greatest present con-
ductance. The doctrine, as a whole, is therefore hedonistic in character,
but comprises a "hedonism of the past" rather than of the present or the
future. It is also evident, of course, that in so far as responses are reflex,
hereditarily established, or via channels which are not directly correlated
with consciousness, this affective correlation cannot hold.
However, we may imagine that the subcortical levels of nervous ad-
justment carry with them their own subconscious psychical systems, with
respect to which the affective laws may still hold. It should be obvious
that only a minute portion of the total structure of the cerebral cortex
can be represented in consciousness at any instant. Hence, the greater
part of what has been learned in the past must be sub-focal and sub-
conscious. Yet this comparatively inactive part of the action system
will not of necessity be entirely without bearing upon the conduction
choices of the moment. Such considerations evidently pave the way for
a physiological explanation of many Freudian concepts and phenomena.
As a final comment, I should like to re-emphasize a point very fre-
quently made but seldom effectively pursued, that the psychological theory
of motivation provides a basis for developing a theory of correct conduct.
LEONARD T. TROLAND 479
If we can ascertain the general basis of all actual human behavior, we
shall most certainly be faced by the principles which must guide us in
properly planning such behavior in advance. In my more elaborate
discussion of motivational problems (30, Chap. 28) — to which I have
already referred the reader with undue frequency — I have outlined a
"substitute for ethics" which I hope may eventually bring forth some
comment from thinkers in the field of morals.
REFERENCES
1. Adler, a. a study of organ inferiority and its psychical compensation.
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1917. Pp. x+86.
2. Adrian, E. D. The basis of sensation. New York: Norton, 1928. Pp. 122.
3. Cannon, W. B. Bodily changes in pain, hunger, fear and rage. (2nd ed.)
New York: Appleton, 1929. Pp. xvi+404.
4. Craig, W. Appetites and aversions as constituents of instincts. Biol. Bull.,
1918, 34, 91-119.
5. Freud, S. A general introduction to psychoanalysis. (Trans, by G. S.
Hall.) New York: Boni & Liveright, 1920. Pp. x+406.
6. Fulton, J. F. Muscular contraction and the reflex control of movement.
Baltimore: Williams & Wilkins, 1926.
7. Holt, E. B. The Freudian wish and its place in ethics. New York: Holt,
1915. Pp. vii+212.
8. James, W. The principles of psychology. Vol. H. New York: Holt, 1910.
Pp. vi+704.
9. Jung, C. G. Collected papers on analytical psychology. (Trans, by C. E.
Long.) London: Bailliere, Tindall & Cox, 1916. Pp. 410.
10. . Psychology of the unconscious. (Trans, by B. M. Hinkle.)
New York: Moffat, Yard, 1916. Pp. iv+S66.
11. . Psychological types. (Trans, by H. G. Baynes.) New York:
Harcourt, Brace, 1926. Pp. xxii-}-6S4.
12. Kuo, Z. Y. Giving up instincts in psychology. J. Phil., 1921, 18, 645-666.
13. Lange, C. Ueber Gemuthsbewegungen. (Trans, by H. Kurella.) Leipzig,
1887.
14. Lashley, K. S. Brain mechanisms and intelligence Chicago: Univ. Chicago
Press, 1929. Pp. xiv+186-Ml plates.
15. MacKaye, J. The economy of happiness. Boston: Little, Brown, 1906.
Pp. 533.
16. McDougall, W. Outline of psychology. New York: Scribner's, 1923. Pp.
xvi+456.
17. . An introduction to social psychology. (20th ed.) London:
Methuen, 1926.
18. . Outline of abnormal psychology. New York: Scribner's, 1926.
Pp. xiii-l-566.
19 Nafe, J. P. An experimental study of the affective qualities. Amer. J.
Psychol., 1924, 35, 507-544.
20. Pavlov, I. P. Lectures on conditioned reflexes. (Trans, by W. H. Gantt.)
New York: International Publishers, 1928. Pp. 414.
21. Pfister, O. The psychoanalytic method. (Trans, by C. R. Payne.) New
York: Moffat, Yard, 1917. Pp. 588.
22. ROBACK, A. A. Behaviorism and psychology. Cambridge, Mass.: Sci-Art,
1923. Pp. 284.
480 PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
23. Shand, a. F. The foundations of character. London: Macmillan, 1914.
Pp. xxxi+532.
24. Sherrington, C. S. The integrative action of the nervous system. New
York: Scribner's, 1911. Pp. 411.
25'. Starling, E. H. Principles of human physiology. (4th ed.) London:
Churchill, 1926. Pp. 1088.
26. Thorndike, E. L. Animal intelligence: experimental studies. New York:
Macmillan, 1911. Pp. viii+297.
27. TiLNEY, F., & Riley, H. A. The form and functions of the central nervous
system. (2nd ed.) New York: Hoeber, 1923. Pp. 1020.
28. ToLMAN, E. C. The nature of instinct. Psychol. Bull., 1923, 20, 200-216.
29. Troland, L. T. a system for explaining affective phenomena. J. Abn.
Psychol, 1920, 14, 376-387.
30. . The fundamentals of human motivation. New York: Van
Nostrand, 1928. Pp. xiv+521.
31. . The principles of psychophysiology. Vol. I. New York: Van
Nostrand, 1929. Pp. xx+430.
32. WooDWORTH, R. S. Dynamic psychology. New York: Columbia Univ. Press,
1918. Pp. 210.
NAME INDEX
Abraraovich, Z. A., 239
Ach, N., 53
Ackermann, A., 174, 176,
185
Adler, A., 32, 395-405,
447, 461, 479
Adrian, E. D., 462, 479
Alexander, S., 7
Allen, A, H. B., 20
Anfimov, — , 223, 230
Angell, J. R., 59, 60, 76-
78, 116, 124, 127
Aquinas, T., 59
Aristotle, 33, 39, 40, 43,
48, 59, 129, 418
Artemov, V. A;, 277, 278
Aveling, F., 359, 364
Avenarius, R., 245, 330
Babcock, E. B., 425, 442
Bain, A., 34, 41, 51
Baldwin, J. M., 28, 59
Ball, J., 94
Bastian, — , 389
Bekhterev, V. M., 221-242
Belova, L. A., 241
Bentham, J., 469
Bentley, M., 68, 75, 78,
95-115, 128, 140, 177,
180, 185, 284-286, 300
Benussi, V., 165, 166, 168,
169, 185
Bergson, H., 34, 54, 55,
430, 442
Bergstrom, J. A., 44
Berkeley, G., 54, 101, 162,
163, 171, 172, 185, 282,
283
Bills, A. G., 92, 94
Binet, A., 54, 344, 439-
441, 456
Black, T. P., 360, 365
Blagoveshchenskaya, V.
P., 236, 241
Blueler, E., 394
Bode, B. H., 97, 114
Boldyrev, — , 223, 241
Book, W. F., 44
Boring, E. G., 59, 78, 115-
128, 140
Borovski, V. M., 86, 94,
277, 278
Bosanquet, B., 51
Bradley, F. H., 51
Brentano, F., 48, 51, 59,
118, 124
Brett, G. S., 39-55
Bridges, C. B., 442
Broad, C. D., 52
Brown, T., 41
Bryan, W. L., 44
Buhler, K., 53
Bukharin, — , 248, 264,
266, 278
Burks, B. S., 440-442
Burtt, H. E., 294, 296, 300
Calkins, M. W., 290
Cannon, W. B., 84, 94,
464, 475, 476, 479
Carmichael, L., 127
Carr, H. A., 4, 35, 59-78,
286, 300
Casmann, — , 282
Cattell, J. McK., 44, 116
Chaly, — , 230
Charcot, J. M., 54
Chuchraarev, Z. I., 277
Clausen, R. E., 425, 442
Cloyne, Bishop of, see
Berkeley, G.
Coghill, G. E., 31, 298
Condillac, E. B. de, 47
Conklin, E. S., 394
Conradi, G. P., 219
Cornelius, H., 139, 162,
203
Craig, W., 83, 94, 468,
479
Crew, F. A. E., 429, 442
Daniell, P. J., 360, 365
Darwin, C, 59, 71, 84,
96, 250
Davey, C, 365, 452
Dearborn, W. F., 357
Denisova, M. P., 241
Descartes, R., 22, 33, 119,
125, 282, 419
De Vries, H., 253
Dewey, J., 59, 116, 123,
124, 127, 282, 409-422
Diderot, D., 251
Dilthey, W., 191, 192
Dobrotvorskaya, — , 230
Dobrynin, N. F., 277, 278
Dodd, S. C, 360, 365
Dodge, R., 291, 300
Drake, D., 7
Drescher, K., 182, 183,
186
Drever, J., 16, 17, 20, 35
[481]
Driesch, H., 55
Dumas, G., 54
Dunlap, K., 291, 300, 309-
323
Ebbinghaus, H., 43, 44,
59, 69, 89, 162, 168, 185,
349
Eddington, A. S., 10, 11
Ehrenfels, C. v., 102, 191
Engels, F., 243-247, 249-
253, 256-260, 265, 278
Epicurus, 469
Eppinger, — , 396
Erismann, — , 32
Fabre, J. H., 13
Fechner, G. T., 48, 120,
333
Fedorova, — , 241
Feurbach, L., 243, 244,
248, 264, 278
Fichte, J. G., 34, 48, 49
Figurin, N. L., 236, 241
Fischer, K., 277
Fisher, R. A., 436, 437,
442
Flexig, — , 222
Flugel, J. C, 374-394, 358,
365
Franz, S. I., 313
Freud, S., 17, 21, 32, 34,
96, 258, 277, 322, 323,
334, 335, 375, 376, 380,
382, 383, 386, 392, 397,
398, 447, 461, 478, 479
Freigius, — , 282
Freeman, F. N., 345, 365,
437-442
Fulton, J. F., 462, 464,
479
Fuchs, W., 169, 171, 185
Galton, F., 43, 429, 430
Garnett, J. C. M., 360,
365
Gelb, A., 172, 173, 175,
176, 183, 186
Goclenius, — , 282
Goddard, H., 357
Goethe, J. W., 198
Goldstein, K., 185
Gottschaldt, K., 164, 166,
185
Green, T. H., 51
482
PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
Haldane, J. S., 8, 16, 35
Hall, S., 398
Hamann, R., 277
Hamid, S. A., 354, 365
Hamilton, W., 41, 282
Hammond, W. A., 33
Hart, B., 47
Harter, N., 44
Hartley, D., 41
Hartmann, E. v., 34, 35
Hartshome, H., 440, 442
Hegel, G. W. F., 22, 243,
244, 249, 252, 254, 255,
260
Helmholtz, H. L. F. v., 49,
113, 132, 138, 178, 179,
182, 183, 186, 333
Henderson, L. J., 105
Heraklitus, 99
Herbart, J. F., 42, 48, 342,
345, 346
Hering, E., 174, 177, 186
Herrick, C. J., 8, 11, 35
Higginson, G. D., 169,
186
Hillebrand, F., 178, 186
Hingston, R. W. G., 14,
35
Hobbes, T., 40
Hobhouse, L. T., 7
Hocking, W. E., 119, 127
Hofler, A., 183
Hollingworth, H. L., 292,
300
Holt, E. B., 125, 127, 461,
479
Holzinger, K. J., 360, 365,
437-442
Hughes, P., 414, 422
Hume, D., 40, 41, 47, 49,
51, 54, 120, 282, 283,
445
Hunter, T. A., 366
Hunter, W. S., 115, 135,
140, 281-300, 333, 335,
412, 415, 422
Hutcheson, — , 34
Ilina, O. S., 239
Ivanov-Smolensky, A. G.,
230
Jacobson, E., 92, 94
Jaensch, E. R., 178, 180,
181, 186, 396
James, W., 42, 59, 70, 89,
99, 123, 309, 322, 417,
474, 475, 479
Janet, P., 54, 369-373, 447
Jaspers, K., 32
Jennings, H. S., 7, 8, 36,
317, 323
Jinuma, R., 203
Judd, C. H., 59, 73
Jung, C. G., 32, 47, 386,
461, 479
Kaila, E., 182, 186
Kanicheva, R. A., 241
Kant, I., 47-49, 249, 399
Kantorovich, N. V., 234,
241
Katz, D., 171, 176, 186
Kelley, T. L., 341, 360,
365, 423-443
Klages, L., 22, 32, 36
Klosovski, B. N., 236, 241
Kliiver, H., 48
KoflFka, K., 115, 145, 160-
187, 193, 203
Kohler, W., 115, 121, 123,
124, 127, 134-140, 143-
160, 162-164, 169, 172,
177, 179, 180, 186, 196,
203, 298, 334, 335
Kornilov, K. N., 238, 243-
278
Kraepelin, E., 47
Krasnogorski, — , 223
Kretschmer, E., 396
Krueger, F., 139, 182, 204,
365
Kiilpe, O., 49, 59, 69, 122,
127
Kuo, Z. Y., 465, 479
Ladd, G. T., 59, 124
Lamarck, J. B. P. A. M.
de, 8, 27, 28
Lange, C. G., 322, 475,
479
Lange, M. V., 232, 235,
236, 240, 241
Lashley, K. S., 8, 85, 94,
115, 223, 286, 287, 289,
298, 300, 345, 365, 479
Lau, E., 183, 186
Lee, — , 437
Lehmann, A., 254, 353,
365
Leibniz, G. W., 47, 48
Lenin, — , 243, 246-249,
251, 255, 260, 278
Lewin, K., 32, 179, 180,
183, 186
Lewis, C. I., 422
Liebmann, S., 173, 186
Lillie, R. S., 8, 36
Line, W., 351
Lipps, T., 59, 277
Locke, J., 33, 46, 47, 283,
419, 420
Lodge, O., 10, 36 ,
Loeb, J., 298
Lotze, R. H., 48, 51, 113
Lukina, A. M., 236, 241
Luria, A. R., 277, 278
Lychina, E. T., 239 ;
Mach, E., 102, 120, 134,
140, 245, 330
MacKaye, J., 469, 479
Mackie, J., 360, 365
Maine de Biran, F. P. G.,
54
Marx, K., 225, 243-249,
251, 252, 256, 257, 259,
260, 262, 263, 266, 267,
271 278
May,'M. A., 440, 442
McCrae, C, 354, 365
McDougall, W., 3-36, 53,
82, 91, 94, 117, 127, 320,
334, 461, 465, 475, 476,
479
Meinong, A., 59
Mendel, G. J., 426-429,
437
Messer, A., 53, 59
Meumann, E., 254
Meyer, A., 371
Meyer, M., 330
Mill, J., 41, 51, 123, 124,
127
Mill, J. S., 29, 42
Molotkov, A. G., 223,
230, 241
Morgan, C. L., 7, 28, 36,
135
Morgan, T. H., 429, 442
Miiller, G. E., 44, 174,
186
Muller, H. J., 442
Mviller, J., 48, 49, 96, 113
Miinsterberg, H., 48-50,
83, 94
Murphy, G., 48
Myasishchev, V. N., 232,
234, 241
Nafe, J. P., 128-140, 469,
479
Narbut, V. N., 241
Necker, — , 163, 164, 166
Nemesius, 353
Newmann, H. H., 437
Newton, I., 6, 7, 33, 41,
51, 445
NAME INDEX
483
Nietzsche, F. W., 33, 34
Nunn, P. T., 34-36, S3
Oken, — , 34
Oparina, N. V., 233, 235,
242
Osipova, V. N., 232, 235,
241
Partridge, G. E., 361, 365
Patrick, G. T. W., 97,
114
Paulsen, F., 7
Pavlov, I. P., 45, 205-220,
223, 233, 237, 238, 333,
464, 467, 474, 479
Pearson, K., 120, 433,
435, 437
Perera, H. S., 354, 365
Perry, R. B., 7
Petrova, M. C, 218
Pfeifer, R. A., 182, 183,
186
Pfister, O., 461, 479
Pilzecker, A., 44
Pines, — , 232
Plato, 39, 360
Plekhanov, — , 243, 248,
251, 267, 278
Poulton, E. B., 28
Priestly, J., 41
Prince, M., 7, 36
Prinzhorn, H., 22, 32, 36
Protopopov, V. P., 223,
241
Rahn, C, 122, 127
Reid, T., 282, 283
Rikman, V. V., 215
Riley, H. A., 463, 480
Roback, A. A., 462, 479
Romanes, G. J., 135
Rubin, E., 145, 153, 160,
170, 171, 186
Ruckmick, C. A., 61, 62,
78
Russell, E. S., 8, 16, 29,
36
Sakuma, K., 179, 180, 183,
186
Saleeby, C. W., 430, 442
Sander, F., 188-204
Schelling, F. W. J. v., 34
Schevalev, — , 230
Schmidt, R., 396
Schneider, C, 195, 204
Schniermann, A. L., 221-
242
Schrotter, — , 387
Shand, A. F., 46, 53, 476,
480
Shchelovanov, N. M., 232,
236, 241, 242
Sherrington, C. S., 333,
464, 480
Schopenhauer, A., 34
Socrates, 33
Soloveychik, D. I., 218
Sorokhtin, G. N., 235,
242
Spearman, C. E., 32, 339-
366, 365, 429, 444-459
Spencer, H., 51, 59, 282
Spinoza, B. de, 51, 87
Spirtov, — , 223
Spranger, E., 32
Stapledon, W. O., 23-26,
36
Starling, E. H., 464, 480
Steinig, K., 169, 186
Stekel, W., 447
Stephenson, — , 366
Stewart, D., 34
Stout, G. F., 42, 51, 53,
59, 60
Strasheim, J. J., 354, 366
Stratton, G. M., 65, 78
Strong, C. A., 7
Stumpf, C, 59
Sturtevant, A. H., 442
Sully, J., 282
Taussig, F. W., 441
Taylor, — , 346
Terman, L. M., 456
Thompson, J. R., 360, 366
Thomson, G. H., 346, 360,
366
Thorndike, E. L., 3, 11,
116, 153, 333, 346, 349,
366, 430, 433-435, 437,
441, 443, 465, 480
Thurstone, L. L., 346, 366
Tiedemann, D., 54
Tilly, F., 268, 278
Tilney, F., 463, 480
Titchener, E. B., 43, 49,
59-62, 67-69, 71-76, 78,
115, 117, 118, 120, 122,
124, 125, 127, 128, 132,
137, 138, 140, 174, 177,
186, 284, 285, 290, 291,
300, 309, 329, 336, 393,
455
Tolman, E. C, 115, 125,
127, 464, 468, 480
Trautscholdt, M., 43
Travis, L. E., 345, 366
Trendelenburg, W., 182,
183, 186
Troland, L. T., 7, 11, 36,
460-480
Tudor-Hart, B., 172, 175,
187
Tuttle, W. W., 296, 300
Ukhtomski, A. A., 232,
233
Vasiliev, L. L., 232
Vedenski, — , 232
Vigotski, L. S., 277, 278
Wagner, R., 238
Walters, — , 354, 366
Ward, J., 50, 51, 282
Washburn, M. F., 81-94,
291, 300
Wasmann, E. S. T., 13
Watson, J. B., 82, 115,
123, 134, 140, 223, 286,
332, 336
Watt, H. J., 53
Webb, E., 359, 360, 366
Weismann, A., 8
Weiss, A. P., 78, 286-289,
298, 300-306
Weld, H. P., (n, 78, 329,
336
Wertheimer, M., 115, 123,
124, 127, 143, 145, 160,
166, 168, 169, 187
Wheeler, W. M., 7
Wild, E. H., 366
Willoughby, R. R., 436,
437, 441, 443
Wirth, W., 353, 366
Wishart, J., 360, 366
Witasek, S., 59, 166, 168,
187
Wohlfahrt, E., 204
Wohlgemuth, G. A., 394
Wolff, C, 282
Woodworth, R. S., 9-11,
20-22, 36, 116, 162, 163,
172, 320, 327-336, 413,
422, 480
Wundt, W., 43, 48-50, 59,
60, 69, 89, 99, 100, 105,
113, 120, 123, 128, 132,
139, 191, 284, 285, 297,
298, 309, 330, 415
Yerkes, R. M., 155, 157,
160
Yushchenko, — , 223
Zola, — , 455
Zollner, J. K. F., 183
SUBJECT INDEX
Abnormal and anomaly, 444
criminal as, 450
as extreme, 446
as non-conformity, 444
as the mysterious, 447
as the pathological, 449
psychology and associationism, 46
as the sexual, 448
as the unusual, 445
Acquired characters, inheritance of, 424
human traits, 423
Act vs. association, 39
and functional psychology, exponents,
59
psychology, 39
vs. dynamic psychology, 327
Action,, hormic theory, 12
Activity, psychological, classes, sum-
mary, 112
as subject-matter of psychology, 331
Affection, action consequences, 472
as attribute of consciousness, 470
conditions and consequences, 472
in motivation, 469
peripheral conditions for, 472
psychical nature, 470
psychological theory, 471
Affective basis of desire, 319
intensity, 471
life in motivation, 461
processes in anthroponomy, 295
in psychoanalysis and psychology,
393
Age reflexology, 234
Agnosia as defect of organization, 172
Aktualgenese, 193
Allusion, 387
Ambivalence as symptomatic of hes-
itant attitude, 398
American empiricism, (see Functional-
ism)
Analyse psychologique, 369
definition, 372
importance of relationship between
psvchological tension and force,
372
maladjusted reactions, 371
method and object, 369
psychological force, 372
psychological tension, 372
traumatic memory as factor, 370
(see also Psychoanalysis)
Analysis, 49, 106, 189
in dynamic psychology, 334
in functionalism, 65
g school vs. Gestalt, 339
in Gestalt psychology, 147
in psychology for eclectics, 123
structuralism vs. Gestalttheorie, 136
Animal psychology and goal-seeking, 3
Announcement in T-system, 110
Anomalous results, value in, 445
Anomaly and abnormality, 444
Anthropometry as method in scientific
psychology, 317
Anthroponomy, completeness of results,
297
definition, 282
derivation of term, 282
fundamental position, 300
irreversible SP-LR, 287
objective method in, 283
vs. psychology, consciousness in, 282,
286
exteroceptive vs. interoceptive, 292
general issues, 281
Hollingw^orth's distinction, 292
incompatibility, 299
internal environment, 294
subject-matter, 283
vs. reflexology, 239
rejection of introspection, 291
relations to other sciences, 289
stimulus-response method in, 296
(see also Behaviorism)
Appollinian view and hormic theory, 33
Appet, definition, 320
vs. libido, 320
Appetence, definition, 320
as synonym to desire, 319
Appetite vs. desire, 319
Appetitional processes in motivation, 461
Applied reactology, 277 „
Aspects of experience, 130
Associated reflex vs. conditioned reflex,
223 _
Association vs. act, 39
in experimental psychology, 131
in muscular and kinaesthetic field, 44
in noegenetic relations, 354
Associationism, 39
and abnormal psychology, 46
and behaviorism, 45, 113
and complex, 46
and conditioned reflex, 45
death of, 55
and experimental psychology, 129
and experimentalism, 48
[484]
SUBJECT INDEX
485
and Gestalt, 55, 113
and Gestalttheorie, 136, 138
images in, 52
modern forms, 45, 46
and sentiment, 46
and the T-system, 113
Atomism vs. organization, 123
Attention as P-f unction, 110
Attitude theory of purposive thinking,
91
Attributes of sensation, 130
Auto-analysis, 382
B-function, 98
definition, 98
Behavior and cerebrum, 207
vs. conduct, 412
vs. consciousness as subject-matter, 99
vs. experience, 294
goal-seeking, 3
in motor psychology, 82
and phenomena in eclectic's psychol-
ogy, 120
as serial, 412
Behaviorism and associationism, 45, 113
consciousness in, 134
experience in, 332
and experimental psychology, 129, 134
and factor school, 364
and functionalism, 77
vs. g school, 339
introspection in, 134, 409, 410
and motivation, 461
and motor psychology, 93
as objective psychology, 119
perception, thought, etc., in, 416
vs. phenomenalism in eclectic's psy-
chology, 119
problems. 111
' and psychoanalysis as new develop-
ments, 374
and psychology, conditioning in, 111
fatigue in. 111
habit in. 111
instinct in. 111
learning in. 111
practice in. 111
problem of method, 134
vs. reflexology, 239
as a school, 115
sensation and perception in, 332
(see also Anthroponomy)
Behavioristic approach to mechanism
of response, 462
conceptions, Woodworth's criticisms,
332
vs. dynamic definition, 331
materialism vs. motor psychology, 82
Beneception, 466
Beneceptors, definition, 466
Bidimensionality, 161
Binet tests, a hotch-potch scale, 344
Binocular parallax and depth percep-
tion, 177
vision, 168
Biological and psychological science, 96
Biology and reflexology, 237
Biophysical vs. biosocial equivalence,
305
reactions as sensations, images, etc.,
302
stimulus in human behavior, 301
Biopsychology vs. reflexology, 238
Biosocial vs. mentalistic psychology, 306
response, 303
standpoint in psychology, 301
stimulus in human behavior, 302
Brain injuries and defects of organiz-
ation, 172
size and individual differences, 314
British associationism, 50
c (see Factory Theory)
Capacities for activity vs. conscious im-
pulses, 20
Causation in human behavior, 9
Cause and effect in dynamic psychology,
328
in reactology, 269
Central norms vs. abnormality, 451
Cerebral function, causes of disorder,
214
hemispheres, four types, 213
Cerebrum activated by subcortical cent-
ers, 215
analytic and synthetic function, 208
and behavior, 207
in integration, 313
Chromosome theory in mental inher-
itance, 427
Chronometric method in reactology, 272
Class psychology, 267
study of, 271
Clearness of attention, 110
as dimension of cognitive quantity,
352
Closure in Gestalt psychology, 112
Cognitive quantity, dimensions, 352
laws of regulation, 353-355
Collective psychology, study of, 271
(see also Social Psychology)
reflexology, 235
Compensation, 395
Complex and associationism, 46
and Woodworth's dynamic principle,
21
Complexes, emotion, and sentiments, 53
in motivation theory, 473, 476
4S6
PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
Conation, two-factor theory applied,
359
Conditioned inhibitive stimulus, 211
reflex and associationism, 45
vs. associative reflex, 223
cortex and subcortical centers, 216,
218
definition, 209
function of subcortical centers, 214
inhibition, 210
rule of irradiation and concentra-
tion of nervous processes, 211
rule of limit of intensity of ex-
citation, 213
rule of mutual induction of nervous
processes, 212
rule of transition of cortical cells to
state of inhibition, 211
as substitutive learning, 84
summation, 210
Conditioning in behavior and psychol-
ogy, 111
ill-used term, 112
Condensation, 387
Conduct vs. behavior, 412
as determined by unconscious, 390
and experience, 409
Configuration vs. element, 191
gradual, genetic realization, 193
Configurationism (see Gestalt Psychol-
ogy and Gestalttheorie)
Conflict in psychoanalysis, 390
as symptomatic of hesitant attitude,
398
Conscious impulses vs. capacities for
activity, 20
Consciousness vs. behavior as subject-
matter, 99
in behaviorism, 134
definition (Troland), 470
and delayed reaction, 82
in dialectic materialism, 247, 263
Dunlap's objection to term, 309
for the eclectic, 119
as environment, 283
and experience, 410, 419
and freedom of motor discharge, 83
history of term, 282
and insight, 135
and irreversible SP-LR, 287
and LR, 288
in motivation, 470
in motor psychology, 82
nervous basis, 82
relation to existence, 248
and symbolic process, 135
vs. tJtality of experience, 188
vs. unconsciousness (Adler), 398
Constancy hypothesis, 120
Consummatory reaction in drives, 83
Context theory of meaning, 125
Contiguity, law of, 40
Correlated activity (Bekhterev), 223
biogenesis of, 228
phylogenesis of, 228
Correlation coeflBcients, pillar of factor
theories, 341
special kind of norm, 458
Cortex, mosaic structure, 212, 214
and subcortical centers, relationship,
experiment, 216, 218, 219
Cortical function and inhibition, 211
and subcortical function, 211
in reflexology, 229
Criterion vs. norm, 459
Deceit, sibling similarity in, 440
Deficient organs and individual psy-
chology, 398
Delayed reaction and consciousness, 82
Depth perception and binocular par-
allax, 177
highly articulated, 177
and retinal disparity, 177
and threshold, 176
Desire vs. instinct, 320
and retroflex, 476
in scientific psychology, 319
Determinant, 121
Determinism vs. freedom for the eclec-
tic, 117
Dialectic materialism, consciousness in,
247
and evolution, 260
as explanatory principle, 261
vs. French materialism, 250
fundamental laws, 252, 255, 258
laws, and psychology, 259
matter in, 246
vs. mechanical materialism, 251
method, 249
as method in scientific research, 262
methodological principles, 244
nature vs. nurture, 257
vs. objective school, 263
principle of leaping development,
252
in psychology, 243
and reflexology, 237
scope, aim, methods, 263
social, 266
vs. subjective psychology, 263
(see also Reactology and Marxian
Psychology)
Dimensions of experience, 130
DIonysIan view and hormic theory, 33
SUBJECT INDEX
487
Discriminatory reaction in reactology,
273
Distribution of conductances, 463
Domestic behavior, 304
Dreams as experimental problem, 394
as the mysterious, 447
in psychoanalysis, 387
Drive vs. desire, 319
and emotions, 84
in individual psychology, 400
nature of, 83
and motor learning, 86
Dualism and the eclectic, 119
in functionalism, 76
of Klages and Prinzhorn vs. hormic
theory, 22
vs. monism in functional conceptions,
77
in motor psychology, 81
(See also Mind-Body Problem)
Dunlap's desire hypothesis, assumptions,
320
Dynamic vs. behavioristic definitions,
331
vs. introspective definitions, 331
principle vs. complex, 21
Dynamic psychology, 327
vs. act psychology, 328
analysis in, 334
and Freudianism, 334
and functionalism, 76
and Gestalt psychology, 333
and hormic psychology, 20, 334
and introspectionism, 328
and psychoanalysis,, 334
and self psychology, 328
subject-matter, 335
Dvnamometric method in reactology,
272
Eclectic's psychology, 115
behavior and phenomena in, 120
definition, 126
determination vs. freedom in, 117
experimentalism vs. empiricism in,
117
as historically determined, 116
EflEectors as influencing ff, 351
Ego complex in motivation theory, 476
Einfalle as special problem in psy-
choanalysis, 394
Einfuhlung, 110
Electron-proton hypothesis in psychol-
ogy, 285, 287
Elements vs. configurations, 191
emotional, 318
in experience, 191
functional, in general intelligence,
346
in psychological analysis, 49
in psychology for eclectics, 123
Emergent evolution, 7, 15
Emotion and drive, 84
feeling as general component, 105
in motivation theory, 473
a neglected problem, 189
as pattern responses, 312
in reactology, 268
and retroflex action, 475
in scientific psychology, 318
sentiment, and complex, 53
Emotional memory in psychoanalysis,
370
Empirical vs. empiristic, 117
Empiricism vs. experimentalism in eclec-
tic's psychology, 117
Empiristic vs. empirical, 117
Energic theory of g, 345
Energy in process in stationary dis-
tribution, 151
Environment in psychology (Bentley),
102
Environmental effects in training, 315
Equating phase of excitation, 213
Equiproportionality in factor theory,
342
Error in individual psychology, 401
Escape from reality, 398
Eugenics, 424
Evolution and dialectic materialism, 260
emergent, definition, 7
Excitation and inhibition, 228
Existence, relation to consciousness, 248
Existentialism and dynamic psychology,
328 _
vs. functionalism, 64
meaning in, 66
(see also Structual Psychology)
Experience vs. behavior, 294
for behaviorlst, 332
and conduct, 409
content of as elements, 191
as conscious process, 410
and consciousness, 419
dimensions, 130
for the eclectic, 119
vs. experiencing, 417
in motivation, 469
of physical disability and inferiority
feeling, 396
psychology, 417
definition, 283
sensory, 129
subject-matter of psychology, 331
Titchener's statement, 290
totality of, 188
Experiencing vs. experience, 417
4g8
PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
Experimental approach to psychoanal-
ysis, 394
method in reactology, 269
psychology, all "schools" homogene-
ous group, 129
and behaviorism, 129, 13+
and Gestalttheorie, 129, 136
higher mental processes in, 131
perception in, 132
problems, 128
purpose excluded, 128
and structuralism, 128
Experimentalism <vs. empiricism in ec-
lectic's psychology, 117
Extensity of cognitive quantity, 353
Facilitation in law of effect, 466
Fact vs. hypothesis in psychoanalysis,
377
Factor school as coordinating factor in
psychology, 365
theory and behaviorism, 364
c and non-/ij 360
conation in, 359
correlation as method of, 341
and doctrine of faculties, 340
energic theory of g, 345
g as effect of functional elements,
346
g as manifested in extensity and in-
tensity of cognitive quantity, 353
g measuring plasticity, 345
g in noegenetic abilities, 348
g and s, explanations, 345
and general psychology, 363
general <vs. specific, 342
and Gestalt, 364
and Herbartianism, 341
hotch-potch tests to bring out g,
343
and individual psychology, 362
instincts in, 360
0 as general factor, 358
p as general factor, 357
past and future, 361
pillars, 341-344
s, 343, 354
speed and accuracy in g, 353
sub-theories, 345
IV as general factor, 360
zero tetrad difference as criterion,
459
Faculties and centers, 313
as classes (Spearman), 340
doctrine of, and factor theory, 340
<os. Herbartianism, 342
measurement of (Spearman), 340
in modern dress, 340
Fatigue in behavior and psychology,
111
Feeble-mindedness as a Mendelian trait,
427
Feeling of inferiority, 396
Feeling in scientific psychology, 310
Feelings, basis. 111
Feurbach vs. Hegel, 243
Figure and ground, 110, 145, 149, 170
Finalism in individual psychology, 400
Fluctuation of attention, 110
Form emergence, 193
in Gestalt psychology, 149
Foresight in modern psychology, 4
Free association, fundamental method
of psychoanalysis, 377
vs. observation and experiment-
ation, 378
Freedom vs. determinism for the eclec-
tic, 117
Freudianism and dynamic psychology,
334
vs. scientific psychology, 321
(see also Psychoanalysis)
Function defined in texts, 61
definition, 67
g school vs. structuralism, 339
as mental activity, 61
psychological and physiological, 62
as service, 62
and structure, 99
as subject-matter, 98
Functions, mind as group of, 371
Functional and act psychology, expon-
ents, 59
integrity of T-system, 104
program, legitimacy, 67
psychologies vs. functional psychology,
60 • _ _
psychology (see Functionalism)
Functionalisra, 59
analysis in, 65
and behaviorism, 77
Boring's statement, 59
characteristics (Boring), 124
(Titchener), 61
criticisms, 69
answered, 71
and dynamic psychology, 76
vs. existentialism, 64
unity vs. complexity of content, 66
vs. g school, 339
and motor psychology, 93
present status, 76
vs. structuralism, 410
for eclectic, 124
differences (Angell), 60
SUBJECT INDEX
489
Fundamental laws of learning, 465
urges, 4
Fusion of disparate images, 180
g (see Factor Theory)
Geistesivissenshaftlicke Psychologie, 9
General intelligence (see g)
psychology and factor theory, 363
theory of two factors, 340
Genetic realization, 193
reflexology, 236
studies in reflexology, 224
German idealism, 51
Gestalt concept in behavior, 296
psychology, analysis in, 147
and associationism, 55, 113
and behaviorism, 123
closure in, 112
dialectic materialism, 265
dynamic psychology, 33
and factor theory, 364
figure and ground, 145, 149, 170
future tasks, 152
vs. g school, 339
higher order groups, 146
interdependence of quality and
quantity, 255
(Koflrka), 161
(K6hler),_ 143
learning in, 155
lower order groups, 146
meaning in, 287
vs. motor psychology, 88, 93
natural grouping of simple objects,
143
physiological aim, 298
principle of distance in grouping,
144
principle of enclosing, 144
and problem of space perception,
162
and psychology for eclectics, 123
quality in grouping, 144
result, 298
(Sander), 188
as a school, 115
some tasks of, 143
(see also Configurationism, Gestalt-
theorie)
Gestalttheorie and experimental psy-
chology, 129, 136
and psychology, Kohler's criticisms,
136
subject-matter, 100
Gland function in mental diflFerences,
316
Goal in striving, 399
Goal-seeking in behavior, 3
Group factor, 357
Habit in behaviorism and psychology,
111
formation, 44
Hedonism, 469
in motivation theory, 478
Hedonistic psychology, 11, 12
Hegelian philosophy and Marxian psy-
chology, 243
Herbartianism and the factor theory,
341
Hereditary constitutions in disorder,
371
Heredity vs. environment in dialectic
materialism, 257
(see also Nature vs. Nurture)
of psychological traits, repudiation,
396
Hesitant attitude In individual psychol-
ogy, 298
Hetero-analysis, 382
Heterogeneity in establishing norms,
456
Hierarchy In factor theory, 342
of function and mental disorder, 371
Higher mental processes in experimental
psychology, 131
History of reflexology, 221
Hormic activity, essential facts, 15
psychology,. 3
defined, 4, 34
and dynamic psychology, 20, 334
as energy manifestation, 14
as mental activity, 15
origins, 33
Prinzhorn and Klages' supplement,
22
vs. purposive psychology, 3
Stapledon's supplement, 23
and Stout's psychology, 53
theory, advantages, 26
of action, 12
adequacy, 15
vs. Intellectualism, 28
introspection in, 29
and physiology, 16
Horopter surface as plane, 172
Human behavior, biophysical vs. bio-
social equivalence, 305
biophysical reaction, 302
biophysical stimulus, 301
biosocial response, 303
biosocial stimulus, 302
elements, 301
sensorimotor interchangeability, 306
Weiss' five categories, 303
Weiss' definition, 303
(see also Anthroponomy and Be-
haviorism)
490
PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
Humor, 387
Hunter's hypothesis of nature of en-
vironmental objects, 287
Hypnosis and inhibition, 213, 217
and psychoanalysis, 381
in struggle between excitation and
inhibition, 216 ^
Idea and purpose, 90
Idealism vs. materialism in Marxian
psychology,, 244
Ideas, motor basis, 87
as stimulus pattern, 312
as tentative movements, 87
Imageless thought, 49
Images in associationism, 52
Incompatible movements and inhibition,
83
Individual analysis by means of scho-
lastic examinations, 370
differences and brain size, 314
as function of glands, 316
as function of receptors,, 316
peripheral vs. central, 315
in reflexology, 234
psychology, 395
compensation, 395
cooperation in, 403
and the factor theory, 362
vs. Freudianism, 395
fundamental assumption, 397
hesitant attitude as evading prob-
lems of life, 398
importance of goal, 400
inferiority in, 395
masculine protest, 398, 401
need for understanding, 403
power vs. sex, 395
problems of life as basis, 398
realm of error, 401
sex,, 401
social feeling in, 401
striving as fundamental fact of life,
399
striving for superiority, 398
therapy in, 404
unity of personality in, 399
(see also Psychoanalysis)
reflexes, 208
reflexology, 234
Inertia of attention. 111
Infant as basis for psychological study,
301
Infections as causes of mental disorder,
371
Inferiority in children, 397
complex, 46, 395
meaning, 452
Inheritance of mental traits, 423
Inhibition, cause of, 83
of conditioned reflex, 210
and cortical function, 211
and excitation in reflexology. 228
as experimental problem in psychoan-
alysis, 394
and hypnosis, 213, 217
and incompatible movements, 83
inner, as coherent inhibition, 233
irradiation of, 212
and sleep, 213, 217
and subcortical centers, 215
in working of law of effect, 466
Initiation in T-system, 110
Innate vs. acquired reactions in dialec-
tic materialism, 257
Inner vs. outer experience in psychology,
330
Insanity, norm, 449
Insight, 112, 135, 155
Inspective analysis, 52
Instinct in behavior and psychology,
111
and emotion in motivation theory,
474
in scientific psychology, 317
vs. desire, 320
in factor theory, 360
McDougall's definition, 13
in motivation theory, 473
and reflex, 464
in reflexology, 228
and retroflex, 468
status, 13
Instrument, sub-form of interpretation,
112
Integration vs. differentiation in brain
functions, 313
of experience, 200
as function of nervous activity, 207
in scientific psychology, 312
Intelligence of apes, 158
current definitions vs. noegenetic con-
cept, 349
factor theory, 339
of siblings, nature and nurture in,
433
of twins, nature and nurture in, 437
(see also Factor Theory)
Intensity of cognitive quantity, 353
limit of in stimulation, 213
Interactionism (See Mind-Body Prob-
lem)
Interoceptive vs. exteroceptive bases 'f
anthroponomy and psychology, 292
Interpretation in thinking. 111
sub-classes, 112
SUBJECT INDEX
491
Introspection in behaviorism, 134, 291
for the eclectic, 119
in functionalism, 67
g school vs. behaviorism, 339
in hormic theory, 29
and motivation, 461
nature of (Titchener), 67
in psychoanalysis, 374
in reactology, 270
rejection of, in anthroponomy, 291
Introspectionism vs. behaviorism, anal-
ysis in, 409
and dynamic psychology, 328
Introspective vs. dynamic definitions,
331
Intuition, Bergson's method, 54
Irradiation of inhibition, 212
rule of, 211
James-Lange theory of emotion and
scientific psychology, 322
Kinaesthesis and relational processes,
89
Kornilov's Institute, problems, 270
school vs. reflexology, 328
Lamarckian transmission, 8, 28
Language in human behavior, 305
Lashley's hypothesis of environmental
objects, 287
Lateral norms, 452
Law of conation, 355
of dispositions, 354
of disuse, 465
of effect, 3, 465
facilitation in, 466
inhibition in, 466
random response in, 466
of effort, 355
of fatigue, 354
of frequency, 3
of inertia or persistence, 354
of mutual penetration of opposltes,
255
of negation of negation, 258
of output, 353
of parsimony and consciousness, 135
Pavlov's (principle of conditioning),
465
of physiological influence, 355
of recency, 3
of retentivity, 353
of transformation of quantity into
quality, 252
of use, 465
(see also Principle)
Laws of association, 40
early formulation, 39
of conditioned reflex, 211, 212, 213
of learning and purpose, 3
of noegenesis, 348, 352
Leaping development, illustrations of
law, 253
principle of, 252
Learning in behavior and psychology,
111
as due to stimulus pattern, 313
in Gestalt, 155
laws, and purpose, 3
in motivation, 473
motor, 44
drives in, 86
physiological basis, 84
physiological mechanism, 465
retroflex as hereditary basis, 468
in scientific psychology, 312
substitutive, 84
drives in, 86
system-forming, 84
drives in, 86
vs. unconscious, 321
Libido vs. appet, 320
and hormic energy, 21
in motivation, 46
Life career, study of, as psychology, 414
Limen as special norm, 457
Logical reaction in reactology, 273
Love as problem of life, 398
LR and consciousness, 288
Machine theory in Gestalt psychology,
154
Marxian psychology, 243
(see also Dialectic Materialism)
Marxism and psychology, 225
and reflexology, 225
(see also Dialectic Materialism)
Masculine protest, 298, 401
Materialism vs. idealism in Marxism,
244
Materialistic monism in anthroponomy,
299
Matter from view of dialectic material-
ism, 246
Meaning, behaviorial theory, 125
in existentialism, 66
in Gestalt psychology, 153, 285
in psychology, 125
structuralism vs. Gestalttheorie, 136
in Wundtian psychology, 285
Meanings vs. contents, 68
Mechanism in motor psychology, 81
of response, 462
vs. scientific psychology, 311
vs. teleology, 8
Memory as experimental problem in
psychoanalysis, 394
492
PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
in experimental psychology, 131
as factor in personality, 370
in Gestalt psychology, 153
Mendelian doctrine and psychological
data, 429
Mental blindness as defect of organi-
zation, 172
development a neglected problem, 189
inheritance, chromosomes in, 428
steps in study of, 442
traits, inheritance, 423
Mentalistic <vs. biosocial psychology,
306
Mere-consciousness psychology, 188
Metaphysical background of motor psy-
chology, 81
Mind-body problem in act and asso-
ciation psychologies, 39
in anthroponomy, 299
in dialectic materialism, 251, 263
in dynamic psychology, 335
in functional concepts, 77
in functionalism, 76
in hormic psychology, 7, 22
in individual psychology, 396
physiological opinion, 8
in psychoanalysis, 375
psychology <vs. anthroponomy, 281
in psychology for psychologists, 100
Mode as measure of normal, 451
Monads, 15
Monism (see Mind-Body Problem)
Monopolar expenditure of energy, prin-
ciple of, 275
Moral concepts and feelings as psy-
choanalytical problems, 394
as usual, 446
Morality and psychoanalysis, 392
Mosaic structure of cortex, 212, 214
Motion as manifestation of nervous ac-
tivity, 207
Motivation, affection in, 469
behavior in, 461
consciousness in, 470
developments and applications of Tro-
land's theory, 473
introspection in study of, 461
problem defined, 460
psychoanalytic theory, 461
in psychology, 3, 4
psychophysiology of, 461
theory, hedonism in, 478
unconscious in, 387
Motivational psychology, 460
psychophysiology of, 461
Motives in psychology, 460
Motor basis of drives, 87
Motor-graphic method in reactology,
272
Motor learning, physiological basis, 84
relation to drives, 86
and behaviorism, 93
•vs. behavioristic materialism, 82
psychology, dualism in, 81
and functional psychology, 93
and Gestalt psychology, 93
ideas in, 87
<vs. interactionism, 82
learning in, 84
mechanism in, 81
metaphysical background, 81
methods and aims, 82
perception in, 87
•vs. purposive psychology, 82, 93
and structural psychology, 93
system, 81
thought in, 90
reaction, Miinsterberg's experiments,
50
Movement systems, types, 85
Muscular reaction in reactology, 272
Nature and nurture, 107
in dialectic materialism, 257
effect on intelligence of siblings,
435
formula, 430
importance of problem, 430
in individual differences, 315
in scientific psychology, 317
twin studies, 437
Necker cube, 163
Nervous activity, higher, three phases,
208
lower vs. higher, 207
outline, 207
role of effector apparatus, 233
basis of consciousness, 82
Neural conductance, 463
integrations in T-system, 103
Neurological studies of Bekhterev, 222
Neuromuscular apparatus of response,
462
Neutroceptors, definition, 466
Nociception, 466
Nociceptors, definition, 466
Noegenesis, broad considerations, 356
clearness, 352
cognitive quantity in, 353
as middle stage between general
theory and sub-theories, 347
laws of, 348
qualitative laws, 347
quantitative laws, 352
speed in, 352
Noegenetic concept vs. current defin-
itions of intelligence, 349
SUBJECT INDEX
493
Norm, correlation coefficient as special
kind, 458
vs. criterion, 459
meaning, 444
normal frequency distribution as spe-
cial kind, 458
as type, 458
Norms, central, 451
lateral, 452
limen as special kind, 457
probable error of, 454
sampling problem, 453
undefined and shifting, 455
Normal frequency distribution as spe-
cial norm, 458
Normative disciplines, 459
Normality, concept, 444
o (see Factor Theory)
Objective biological method in reflex-
ology, 226
method in anthroponomy, 283
in reactology, 269
in reflexology, 223
observation in psychoanalysis, 374
psychology vs. dialectic materialism,
263
treatment of psychoanalytic data, 385
Objectivists <us. reflexology, 238
Optimale Gestaltetheit, 195
Orexis, 359
Organic weakness and psychic infei*-
iority, 395
Organization vs. atomism, 123
hypothesis, evidence for, 169
in perception, location, 183
Oscillation as general factor, 358
P-function, 98
p (see Factor Theory)
Parabiosis, 232
Paradoxical phase of excitation, 213
Parallax, 168
Parallelism (see Mind-Body Problem)
Parapraxia and psychoanalytic theory,
386
Parapsychology, 448
Pathological cerebral function, causes,
214
reflexology, 224
Pathology and abnormality, 449
Pattern in scientific psychology, 312
Patterned response in P-function, 106
Pavlov's school vs. reflexology, 238
Perception, configurationism vs. motor
psychology, 88
in experimental psychology, 132
in functionalism, 66
motor basis, 87
and sensation in behaviorism, 332
in scientific psychology, 310
space, problems of, 161
theory, transphenoraenal effective psy-
chic reality in, 190
Perseveration as general factor, 357
original finding, 43
Personal behavior, 304
psychology vs. self psychology, 54
Personality in dialectic materialism,
258
in individual psychology, 397
memory as a factor, 370
motivation in, 4, 474
a neglected problem, 189
and retroflex, 477
as sum total of structures, 202
unity of, in individual psychology,
399
from view of dialectic materialism,
264
Phasic movement systems, 85
Phenomenalism vs. behaviorism in ec-
lectic's psychology, 119
Phi phenomenon, 169
Phrenological conception in psychology,
313
Physics vs. psychology (Mach and Av-
enarius), 330
(Titchener), 290
Physiological basis of motor learning,
84
mechanism of learning, 465
Physiology and dynamic psychology,
335
Plasticity in general intelligence, 345
Plateau, 45
Pleasantness vs. unpleasantness, (see
Affection)
Pleasure as motive force, 18
principle and hormic theory, 17
Positive transference and suggestion,
383
Practice in behavior and psychology,
111
Practice and g, 354
Preponderant propensities, 4
Prepotent reflexes, 4
Primacy of the will vs. hormic theory,
34
Primitive impulse theory, 395
Principle of explosiveness, 276
of incompatible movements, 93
of monopolar expenditure of energy,
275
(see also Laiv)
Probable errors of norms, 454
Progressive refashioning as sub-form of
494
PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
interpretation, 112
Pseudo-norms, 456
Psychic inferiority and organic weak-
ness, 395
monism, 7
reality, transphenoraenal effective,
justification, 190
Psychical determinism as fundamental
concept in psychoanalysis, 375
Psychoanalysis, affective processes in,
393
arguments against influence of sug-
gestion, 381
and behaviorism as new develop-
ments, 374
data from anthropology, mythology,
etc., 386
difficulties in presenting data, 379
for distinguishing connotations, 376
and dynamic psychology, 334
emotional memory in, 370
fact "VS. hypothesis, 377
free association as method in, 377
historical considerations, 375
isolation from main psychological
science, causes, 375
as a method, 377
and morality, 392
objective treatment of data, 385
opportunities, 393
place of analyst, 380
positive transference and suggestion,
383
and psychology, need for closer re-
lations, 393
question of method, 393
rapport and hypnosis, 381
search for causes, 374
sex in, 391
suggestion in, 381
two fundamental concepts, 375
(see also Analyse psychologique and
Individual Psychology)
Psychoanalytical and clinical findings,
388
explanation of appetitional processes,
461
findings, verifiability of, 381
modification of social life, 391
Psychodispositional tendencies, 190
Psychological activities of the organism,
summary, 112
and biological science, 96
force in analyse psychologique, 372
function, definition, 98
products of, 108
parallelism in psychoanalysis, 375
tension in I'analyse psychologique,
372
Psychology vs. anthroponomy, general
issues, 281
Hollingworth's distinction, 292
incompatibility, 299
internal environment in, 294
interoceptive vs. exteroceptive, 292
methods, 290
subject-matter, 283
applied, 70
biosocial standpoint, 301
definition (Boring), 126
(Janet), 369
(McDougall), 34
(Nafe), 128
(Weiss), 301
(Woodworth), 328, 329
for eclectics, analysis in, 123
definitions, 116
environment in, 102
history of term, 282
Hunter's objections, 293
as influenced by other sciences, 96
and laws of dialectic materialism,
259
and Marxism, 225
vs. physics (Mach and Avenarius),
330
(Titchener), 289
and psychoanalysis, relation, 393
for psychologists, 95
Psychophysical parallelism, (see Mind-
Body Problem)
relations to other sciences, 290, 369
as study of activity (Woodworth),
331
life-career, 414
Public behavior, 304
Pun in psychoanalysis, 387
Pure science vs. technology, 126
Purpose, mechanistic explanation, 91
recognition of, 4
and retroflex, 476
in striving, 400
in structural psychology, 128
in thought, 90
Purposive activity, recognition in, 4
psychology, American psychology as,
4
and behaviorism, 4
hedonistic vs. hormic, 11
vs. hormic psychology, 3
vs. motor psychology, 82, 93
vs. scientific psychology, 311
and Stout's psychology, 53
(see also Hormic Psychology)
thinking, attitude theory, 91
Quality in group formation in Gestalt
psychology, 144
SUBJECT INDEX
495
in psychoanalysis, 410
Qualities in behavior, 414
Qualitative laws of noegenesis, 347
Quantitative laws of noegenesis, 352
Questionnaire in psychoanalytical study,
394
Random responses and the law of ef-
fect, 466
Range of attention, 110
Rapport and hypnosis, 381
Reaction psychology, 309
Reactology, 268
applied, 277
methods, 269
principle of explosiveness, 276
problems, 270
quantitative facts, 268
types of reactions, 272, 273
typology, 273
Readiness of drives, 83
Real vs. actual in psychology for eclec-
tics, 122
Receptors as factors in brain develop-
ments, 316
as influencing ^j 351
Recognition reaction in reactology, 273
in Gestalt psychology, 153
Recreational behavior, 304
Redintegration, 42
Refashioning as sub-form of interpre-
tation, 112
Reflex, conditioned, definition, 209
summation in, 210
food, in decerebrate dogs, 209
ill-chosen terms, 112
and instinct, 91, 464
(see also Conditioned Reflex and Re-
flexology)
Reflexes, classified, 464
disorder of, and I'analyse psychol-
ogique, 371
exogenous vs. endogenous, 228
innate and acquired, 228
and learning in motivation theor}',
473
in reactology, 268
unconditioned, definition, 207
species, 209
Reflexism and psychology for eclectic,
123
Reflexology, age, 234
vs. American behaviorism, 239
vs. anthroponomy, 239
Bekhterev's 221
and biology, 237
vs. biopsychology, 238
classification of principles, 232
collective, 235
and dialectic materialism, 237
general, 234
genetic, 236
genetic studies, 224
history, 221
individual, 234
vs. Kornilov's school, 238
and Marxism, 225
methods, 230
objective biological basis, 226
method, 223
vs. objectivists, 238
pathological, 224
vs. Pavlov's school, 238
practical applications, 231
present problems, 232
principles, 225
and psychic processes, 229
relation to biology and sociology, 225
scope, 230
and social problems, 224
vs. subjective psychology, 238
vs. Wagner's school, 238
Relational processes, 88
and kinaesthesis, 89
Relations in Gestalt psychology, 148
in noegenetic theory, 350
Reproduction in Gestalt, 153
Response, mechanism of, 462
neuromuscular apparatus, 462
psychology, 309
specificity as problem of motivation,
460
types of, 462
psychology, (see Scientific Psychology)
Retention vs. unconscious desire, 321
Retentivity as influencing ^„ 351
Retinal disparity and perception of
depth, 177 ^
Retroflex action, definition, 467
purpose and desire, 476
sentiments and complexes. 476
as hereditary basis for learning, 468
and Instinct, 468
and personality, 477
Reverie, 90
s (see Factor Theory)
Sampling in establishing norms, 453
Science, pure vs. applied, 70
Scientific psychology, 309
desire in, 319
feeling In, 310
Instinct and emotion in, 317
integration as cardinal process, 312
learning in, 313
vs. mechanism and purposivism, 311
perception in, 310
thought in, 310
496
PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1930
unconscious in, 321
Selective reaction in reactology, 273
Self psychology vs. dynamic psychology,
328
Sensation <vs. activity, 49
in behavior, 332, 414
Bentley's definition, 113
concept of, 130
danger in concept, 148
in dialectic materialism, 247
as element, 49
and perception in behaviorism, 332
in psychology, 410
Sense of guilt as symptomatic of hes-
itant attitude, 398
Sensorimotor interchangeability, 306
process as elements, 49
as unit, 49
Sensory processes in experimental psy-
chology, 129
reaction in reactology, 272
Sentiment and associationism, 46
and complex in motivation theory,
476
emotions, and complexes, 53
in motivation theory, 473
Sex in individual psychology, 401
<vs. power in individual psychology,
395
in psychoanalysis, 391
Similarity, law of, 40
Sleep and inhibition, 213, 217
Pavlov's ITS. Bekhterev's theory, 236
reflexological investigations, 236
Social 'US. biological inheritance, 424
feeling, lack of, and nervous symp-
toms, 401
life, modification by psychoanalysis,
391
problems in reflexology, 224
psychology, desire in, 320
and dialectic materialism, 266
reflexology, 235
(see also Collective)
Society as problem of life, 398
Sociology and reflexology, 237
Space perception, Berkeley's hypothesis,
162
brightness and thickness in, 174
depth and threshold in, 176
frontal parallel plane, 172
highly articulated depth perception,
177
location of organization, 183
organization hypothesis, 166
evidence for, 169
problems of, 161
and retinal disparity, 177
transparency, Tudor-Hart's exper-
iments, 175
Specific function of brain cells, 313
Speed as cognitive quantity, 352, 353
SP-LR, 287
Standard deviation, 452
Static movement systems, 85
Stationary equilibrium in brain process,
150
Statistical method in reactology, 269
Stimulus as change, 413
definition, 413
Stimulus-response nature of behavioris-
tic experiment, 296
in scientific psychology, 312
Stout's psychology, 51
Striving as fundamental fact of life,
3, 399
Structural vs. empirical psychology, 59
psychology, 128
and motor psychology, 93
Structuralism vs. functionalism, 60, 124,
410
vs. g school, 339
(see also Experimental Psychology)
Structure of consciousness, 410
and function, 99
g school vs. functionalism, 339
and mechanism of reaction, problem,
271
totality of experience and Gestalt,
188
Style-of-Iife ideal, 404
Subconscious as cause of appetitional
processes, 461
Subcortical centers and inhibition, 215
unconditioned reflexes, 207
Subjective vs. biosocial psychology, 306
psychology vs. dialectic materialism,
263
vs. reflexology, 238
Subreaction, 302
Substitutive learning, 84
drives in, 86
Substitute reactions, 302
Suggestion in psychoanalysis, 381
Summation in conditioned reflex, 210
Super-ego, 392
Superiority, striving for, 398
Symbolic process and consciousness, 135
Symbolism, 387
as experimental problem, 394
Symbolization as sub-class of interpre-
tation, 112
System-forming learning, 84
Talkie in psychoanalysis, 379
Teleological causation, 5
psychology, hedonistic vs. hormic, 11
SUBJECT INDEX
497
Teleology, definition and use, 74
and functionalism, 61, 71
in hormic psychology, 4
intrinsic and extrinsic, 5
<vs. mechanism, 8
science vs. religion, 5
in Titchenerianism, 73
Telepathy, 448
Telekinesis, 448
Test method in reactology, 270
Tests, accuracy vs. speed in, 352
Tetrad differences in establishing
norms, 454
in factor theory, 342
Theory of factors and mathematics, 339
three stages, 347
(see also Factor Theory)
Therapy in individual psychology, 404
Thought in dialectic materialism, 247
motor basis, 90
as P-f unction, 106
processes involved, 90
in scientific psychology, 310
Totality of experience, 188
Train of ideas, 52
Transmission of acquired characters,
424
Transparency, 175
Traumatic memory concept, 370
Tridimensionality, 161
T-system, 97
Tvro-f actor theory, see Factor Theory
Type as norm, 458
Types of cerebral hemispheres, 213
Unconditioned reflexes, 207
individual, 209
subcortical basis, 207
stimuli, 207
Unconscious, 123
and conduct, 390
vs. conscious, 322, 398
desire vs. retention, 321
as fundamental concept in psycho-
analysis, 375
vs. learning, 321
in scientific psychology, 321
wishes, 388
Understanding in individual psychol-
ogy, 403
Undifferentiated factor in P-function,
106
Unit in terms of action (Miinsterberg),
49
Usual and moral, 446
Visual observation in anthroponomy,
292
processes, physics of, 151
Vocation as problem of life, 398
behavior, 304
w (see Factor Theory)
Wagner's school vs. reflexology, 238
Ward's psychology, life and self as sub-
ject, 51
Weismannism vs. creative evolution, 8
Weiss' hypothesis of nature of envi-
ronmental objects, 287
Will, in two-factor theory, 359
Wit as experimental problem, 394
Word association as psychoanalytical
problem, 394
Wurzburg school, 49
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